Story of the Week: Remembering Bill Dodder
On January 30, 2026, Woodmen’s founding Pastor, Bill Dodder, passed into eternity with Jesus. Here at Woodmen and throughout his life, Bill left a legacy of love in action.
On January 30, 2026, Woodmen’s founding Pastor, Bill Dodder, passed into eternity with Jesus. As we honor his life, we also grieve alongside his wife, Patty, and his family and dear friends.
Here at Woodmen and throughout his life, Bill left a legacy of love in action. All of us who have called Woodmen home through the years are grateful to stand upon the faithful foundation he laid.
As part of our Year of Story, we want to share some of Bill and Patty’s memories from the Woodmen’s early days. The story below was written after a 2019 chat with the couple at 1979 Coffee, and was featured in that year’s Launch magazine. We still have fond memories of that conversation, listening to Bill reminisce, learning from his wisdom and laughing along with his warm sense of humor.
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Back to the Beginning
It might not be totally accurate to say that Bill Dodder traded his Porsche for Woodmen Valley Chapel. But it’s not too far off.
The year was 1979, and Bill and his wife, Patty, had recently purchased the acreage on Woodmen Road that’s now home to Woodmen’s Rockrimmon campus. Their dream was to plant a new church. But the city planning department had other ideas. The property wasn’t zoned for a church and Bill’s request to change the zoning had just been denied.
Bill isn’t one to be easily sidetracked, especially when he feels like he’s following God’s call to reach people with the gospel. Bill wasn’t sure of the best way forward, but a mobile home on the property seemed like a good next step. By making the trailer their residence, Bill and Patty could host church there on Sundays. Cash was in short supply and when he arrived at the dealership, Bill recalls the exchange that took place this way: “The dealer wanted the car and I wanted the trailer.”
And the rest is history. Sort of. Given the thriving, multi-campus church we see today, it’s easy to assume that everything was smooth sailing in Woodmen’s early days. But like Bill and Patty, the truth of the story is less simple than that … and a lot more fun.
A Doublewide Dream
There were many hurdles to overcome as the little church began to welcome more and more people. With the perspective gained from decades of living and trusting God, Bill and Patty look back on those early obstacles and see each one as another chance to trust God.
By 1980, the fledgling group of Christ-followers that would become Woodmen were singing and learning about God every Sunday in that beige-paneled doublewide. The little church of 15 or 20 began in Bill and Patty’s home a few months earlier. Bill recalls, “We were gathering a nucleus of people to be with us as we planted the church. There was an excitement about what God might grow.”
For the church to grow, the first hurdle was zoning. Bill had appealed the zoning ruling, but the Planning Department meeting wasn’t going well. A vocal group of neighbors were opposed to a church on the land. In addition, because Bill had spent much of his career as a contractor and real estate developer, folks questioned whether the church was just a ruse to get the zoning changed to facilitate a more lucrative future use.
God Came Through
At the meeting, Bill was outnumbered, and the opposition seemed to be carrying the day, when out of the blue, help arrived in from an unexpected source. Colorado Springs Mayor Bob Isaacs stepped to the microphone and spoke up in support of the church. With the backing of Mayor Bob, as he was affectionately known, the land was rezoned and the little congregation was on its way.
“God came through time after time in those early days,” Bill recalls. “We started to see that there was something supernatural to this. It wasn’t just some people having an idea.”
Patty picks up the story: “The church was growing and the new zoning opened the way for us to clear out the chinchilla barn.” (This is the point in the story where the reader exclaims, “Wait… Chinchilla what!”)
A Chinchilla Chapel
The new church property had a history as a chinchilla ranch. And the most logical way forward was to repurpose the small barn for the new church sanctuary. Step one: The messy task of mucking out a foot of Chinchilla dung that covered the barn floor. “The ladies decided to do it. They led the way,” Bill remembers.
Today if you make your way to the Rockrimmon campus, you’ll notice a small stone building standing alone in the upper parking lot. This structure, which we now call the Prayer Chapel, is that renovated chinchilla barn. It’s the place where Woodmen began to take shape.
In addition to the faithful volunteers who served week-in and week-out, Bill is grateful to have shared the work of ministry in those early days with Troy Bateson and Harold Daniels. Troy led the music and Harold served as associate pastor.
Bill’s background in construction came in handy as the three men built a small log-cabin-style building on the church property to serve as makeshift office space. One spring they even built a platform and bleachers to hold Easter services outside, since the congregation had outgrown the chinchilla-chapel.
A Neighborhood Church
“Our vision was to grow a neighborhood church,” Bill says. “We wanted a church that would minister to the whole family — where people could walk to church and where kids could invite school friends to come to a church that was just down the road.”
It’s amazing to realize that, all these years later, Woodmen’s multi-campus approach to serving Colorado Springs stays true to Bill’s original vision. Through campuses spread across the Pikes Peak region, Woodmen is still trusting God to draw folks from all over the area to be part of a church family that serves their community.
No One But God
Although the church continued to grow through the early years, the work wasn’t always easy for Bill. People were coming to faith and the little chapel was soon packed with 80 people, from babies to grandparents, attending Sunday service together. The families in the congregation thought it was time to start having Sunday school for their kids.
“That meant building a new building,” Bill recalls. As much as he loves children, Bill wasn’t sure the time was right for the church to build. There were strong disagreements within the congregation over the idea.
Bill remembers, “I was discouraged. We called a church meeting and it was to the point that I was thinking about resigning. Right before the meeting, one of the families I was counting on knocked on my door to tell me they were leaving the church.”
Bill felt distraught and alone: “I remember praying, ‘God, there’s no one here but You and me.’ And as soon as I said those words, a light went on!”
Bill realized that, although it’s often not comfortable or safe, there’s no better place to be than in a spot where we have to rely completely on God. As he continued to pray, Bill felt God direct him, “Stay here and get the job done.”
That Sunday, Bill brought the need before the church, and invited them to give if God was leading them to do so. The small but obedient congregation gave over $60,000 in a single day! “It was another display of God’s faithfulness and a clear confirmation that He really wanted the church here,” Bill says.
Bill recalls, “The week before we opened the new church, we had about 120 people. All of a sudden, we hit 350 on the first Sunday!”
A Generous People
Patty shares, “We opened the new building on Easter of 1983, and it was packed. Many of these weren’t regular church-goers. I kept thinking, Where did all these people come from?” She tears up as she shares the memory of that spring: “They all came back the next week. It was just God! was really exciting.”
Today, that river rock and wood building still stands tall at the Rockrimmon campus. As the church grew, it’s been replaced by a larger worship center, but it’s still used today for everything from weddings to kids’ programs.
All these years later, Bill remains amazed at the ways God worked through the Woodmen congregation. “We had people who were so generous. I remember when there was a famine in Africa and we felt God leading us to take a special offering. We raised $30,000 in one day. Bill was so overwhelmed by the weight of stewardship that he traveled to Africa personally to find a high-impact, high-integrity organization he could trust with the donated funds.
A Home Away from Home
After seven years of leading and guiding the people of Woodmen, Bill felt it was time to step aside. Bill has never been one to rest on his laurels, and in the years that followed he continued to serve the Lord through a wide variety of Kingdom-minded pursuits — everything from working with Cru, a ministry that focuses on sharing the hope of Christ with college students, to serving as interim pastor at a church in Monument, to joining an archeological expedition searching for the remains of Noah’s Ark in Turkey.
Today, Bill and Patty are still part of the Woodmen church family. “We can never get away from Woodmen. it just feels like home,” Patty smiles. Bill still uses his gifts for teaching and evangelism as they lead a community group from their home.
As Patty pauses to reflect on where Woodmen is today, with five campuses reaching thousands of people each week, she says, “It’s been such a blessing to see Woodmen grow — to see how God has used this community of people. From where it started to where we are today, it’s incredible to see how God has used this church.”
Bill looks back with a sparkle in his eye on the many wonderful signs of God’s goodness through those early years. He’s grateful for the ways each of those moments gave him the courage and the faith to press ahead with the God-given dream of Woodmen Valley Chapel: “We were inspired by those little miracles along the way. It’s like if you’re hiking up Pikes Peak; every time you’re not sure if you can make it, you round a corner and a new vista opens up in front of you. It inspires you to keep trying, to go to the summit.”
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