Ben Cloud is the head pastor at Amadeo. Ben is married to Mandy Cloud and has four kids: Noah, Jennah, Annah and Bono. Ben currently works full time at Amadeo as the head pastor.

Ben grew up in the Southern Baptist Church, spent high school and college years at Bethany Community Church, and spent a few years in a four square church before getting married, moving to Chandler and attending Vineyard Community Church in Gilbert for 12 years. Ben has taken three mission trips to India, the first included spending a summer working at Mother Theresa's home for the dying and destitute. Ben has been a champion of missions to Northern Ireland, India and Mexico working with orphangaes and drop in centers for youth. Next up he will be going to Tanzania to train pastors with the Dothan Vineyard.

Ben attended Northern Arizona University where he received his B.S. in English Education and M.A. in Applied Linguistics and has taken some classes at Fuller Theological Seminary. He taught high school English at McClintock High School where he lead a Christian club called Club Genesis. For another 8 years he worked as a software engineer either in a part time capacity or full time capacity. Ben is now working on his Master of Ministry at St Stephen's University.

Prior to starting the church plant Ben served at Vineyard Community Church as the College & Career leader, and Youth pastor. He was the full time youth pastor for 3 years. His last year he saw over 30 go on mission trips to Mexico, 11 go to Northern Ireland, 4 go to Africa, 17 to Camp Barnabas in Missouri, and 1 go to Northern Ireland. In those three years he helped fund raise over 200,000k in mission trips and sent over 150 youth on mission trips around the states and the world. He founded the Gilbert Drop in Center and is now working with the youth leaders on a second drop in center, called the Higley Drop in Center for Youth.

His desire is to see a Nation of Priests raised up - to serve both locally and globally, to learn to live missionally for Jesus Christ in a way that engages all cultures and people for God's glory. His areas of gifting include: Teaching, Giving, Local and Global Missions.

I was born in 1970 in Goodyear Arizona, a son of an aerospace engineer. Both my parents were Christians raised in a Southern Baptist Church. I went to church every Sunday and my parents served in Sunday School and in various capacities throughout their time at the Baptist Church. When I was four we moved to Glendale Arizona and at nine I accepted Jesus - mostly moved by the Love of God in by the words in a song in the old Baptist Hymnal called "People to People." A few of the words that spoke to my heart: "There are people who need to know, people who need to see, people who need to have God's redeeming love." Something happened one Sunday in church that showed me that I was one of those people, God's call in my life was irrisistable. Around fourth grade we moved to Tempe, we started attending the Baptist church called "The Church on Mill." There we stayed until 8th grade. It was in this church that we first started seeing drums, guitars and saxophone's in church. I was in awe that a church could really use rock and roll instruments to worship God.

In high school we moved to Bethany Community Church where I was shocked to find out you could be a Christian and not be a Baptist. We started when the church was 600 people - and we would watch it grow to over 2000 as God did his work. What was amazing was that this was a church that really served the community and was involved in it. There my youth pastor asked me to learn a song on the guitar and lead the youth one Wednesday evening - each week I continued learning new songs - and somewhere along the line my heart was captured by a band called U2. I really loved seeing how Christians could be salt and light in the real world without being "religiousy." I decided somewhere in high school that I wanted to do the same thing - be in the "real world" and be "salt and light." Somehow in High School I got voted most likely to become a priest...I guess they didn't realize I wasn't catholic.

In College I got involved in Inter-varsity Christian fellowship because I could play the electric guitar and do solos. It was a good group of people who were committed to worship, world missions, social justice, the study of the word of God, and being missional. It was there I lead worship, was the global missions coordinator and small group bible study leader. I lead several trips to Mexico, and travelled one summer to work at Mother Theresa's home for the dying and destitute. I learned a good deal about innocent suffering, the presence of pain, and the importance of hospitality. I thought I was going to be a preaching missionary that year- and it turned out I was a nurse the whole summer - learning to love, serve and have compassion on the "least of these."

I attending Christ Church of Flagstaff for most of my years - but God lead me to a Four Square Church towards the last year of college as I was finishing up my masters in Applied Linguistics. It was there that my eyes were opened to the move of the Holy Spirit as well as to the wackiness of charismatic Christians. The church I was attending gave plenty of examples of disordely worship as well as plenty of examples of the genuine move of God- to this day it proves to me the idea that God moves regardless of our intellectualism or emotional fervor - God is bigger than it all.

When I finished my masters I moved to Joseph City (the first Mormon town in Arizona: population 1500) and began a church plant while I taught English as a Second Language to Navajos in the nearby town of Holbrook. We bought a Cafe called the Western Hat cafe, gutted it, and made it into a church - there is still a community of Christians meeting there today. I also was blessed by the "Move of God" to meet my future wife: Mandy Cloud. She was a catholic young lady who worked at the District office in Holbrook. We met, fell in love, and then moved down to Chandler, AZ.

In Chandler Arizona we tried out a few nearby churches - and landed at Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Gilbert. We were at that church for 12 years. My first service at that church was picking weeds, a few years later we would host a small group, then lead one, then I was asked to work with the College & Career group. I also taught English Education at McClintock High school in Tempe for 4.5 years where I lead the Christian Club on Campus called Club Genesis. For a while club genesis had 75 kids meeting in a room, doing worship and bringing in guest speakers - it looked like a high school version of Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship.

After a few years of doing the College & Career, the pastor asked me to lead the Youth Group. So for four years I lead the youth group and started leading mission trips to Mexico, Northern Ireland, India, N ew York and to Camp Barnabas (well, Mandy lead these.) We sent one fellow to Ecuador, four to Africa, and one to Northern Ireland for a whole year. We initiated a local outreach to skater and BMXers called the Gilbert Drop in Center where we would build ramps, grind rails, BMX jumps in the dirt retention basin, and feed them hotdogs on a weekly basis.

in January of 06 I was asked for the second time by my Pastor whether or not I would consider doing a church plant. I said no, went home, and immediately knew I was supposed to do the church plant. Two months later I let my pastor know that I guess I did need to do this anyways - because God was "moving" me and my heart that way. In may we wrote our bylaws and articles, began meetinig on a monthly basis, and by September we were meeting with a small group of 60 on Monday evening. In December we moved to Sunday services at 9:30am at Power Ranch Elementary School. We have since baptized 7 people, seen numerous people come to the Lord, started a second drop in center called Higley Drop In and we are seeing an attendance of around 100. Currently, I work full time at AMADEO Church and have an amazing staff of workers (servant-leaders) dedicated to the seeing the Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

AMADEO is the name of our church and it means "the Love of God." AMADEO is a missional, kingdom-centric community that is influenced by reformed theology and Kingdom Theology (the move of the Holy Spirit). The love of Christ is the first and last thing we think about as we do ministry in church, in the community, in service, in worship, in our study of the gospel, in how we interact with our culture, and our love for one another.

Our goals broken down:

1.  Love others as Jesus has loved us.

2.  Preach, teach and live out what Jesus taught us about His kingdom: caring for the poor, serving others, praying for healing, preaching, teaching and making disciples, caring for children, etc.

3.  Making New Disciples

4.  Making Mature Disciples: Equipping the Church