Agape Staff

Each Agape staff member are self-funded missionaries for Agape First Ministries which means they do their own fundraising. [Money donated to Agape First Ministries directly goes to our organization expenses.] Each staff also manages their own E-Letters. You can subscribe to each staff member newsletter individually or sign up for them all here (uncheck the ones you don’t want to sign up):

Pastor Nate Oyloe / Executive Director

Pastor Nate Oyloe is the founder and director of Agape First Ministries. Nate has ministered to the sexually and relationally broken since 2000. He has taught nationally on issues of gender and the redemptive power of God. He and his wife, two sons and daughter live in Minneapolis, MN.

Email: Nate @ agapefirstministries.org
Subscribe to Nate’s E-Letter

Reverend Daren Mehl / Associate Director
Rhoda Mehl / Ministry Volunteer

Daren and Rhoda are married and have two children, Sebastian age 7, and Esther age 6. Together Daren and Rhoda serve in ministry equipping, teaching, and ministering the transforming power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Daren and Rhoda, lead by the Holy Spirit, both came out of the LGBTQ community and married in 2005. Their journey of healing and discipleship in Jesus Christ included 14 years of increasing intimacy with Jesus and personal healing while serving in their home church. In 2021 Daren joined Agape First Ministries to further the mission to make Jesus famous, to bring the healing power of God to others through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and a lifestyle of discipleship. Rhoda is a trained prayer and intercessor and leads their family as a home school tutor and private school theater instructor.

Email: Daren @ agapefirstministries.org
Visit www.voiceofthevoiceless.info for more info!
Subscribe to Daren & Rhoda’s E-Letter

Pastor Luca Groppoli / Associate Director

My name is Luca Jo Groppoli. I am a graduate of Christ For the Nations Bible College, where I was also ordained.

I am Associate Director with Agape First Ministries.

Outreach Director with Child Protection League.

It is my mission to go, make disciples of the nations, to tell the world, that Jesus can, and does in fact transform people, even people like me, who lived as a transgender male for over 3 decades.

Let’s make Jesus famous together, by connecting the lost to the heart of the Father.

Email: Luca @ agapefirstministries.org
Subscribe to Luca’s E-Letter

Wendi Williams / Office Manager / Prayer Coordinator

Wendi is the youngest of 7 children. She grew up in New York State, but moved around a lot once she graduated high school. She transplanted here to MN in 1997 and became involved with activities of religious living. She met Nate Oyloe in 2018, started Immanuel Prayer with him in March 2020, and began working for Agape First Ministries in the summer of 2020. She has been through Immanuel Lifestyle and Prayer Training, and is now the Prayer Coordinator for Agape First Ministries.

Email: Wendi @ agapefirstminsitries.org
Subscribe to Wendi’s E-Letter

Val Eliason / True Love Outreach

Val has been immersed in missions most of her adult life. Val is a mother to five children and is married to Steve. She is a graduate from Bethany Global University with a BA in Bible and Missions. Her husband and she went to Philippines to church plant in 1985. In the Philippines she learned to speak Ilokano in a village. The two churches they served while in the Philippines are now being pastored by their youth group members. There are now 20 churches in Isabela today and 20 more churches are being planted by Filipino pastors in 2020. Her family came back to the states in 2000 to raise their family. She has been involved in ministering to the LGBTQ Community and their families for about 10 years. Val and her True Love team have been showing Christ’s love and sharing about Him when they can, for 5 years.  She serves on staff at Agape First Ministries in Minneapolis. 

Email: Val @ agapefirstministries.org
Subscribe to Val’s E-Letter

Jonny Maxcy / Worship Director

Jonny grew up in Western Nebraska (think Oregon Trail–Chimney Rock.) He comes from a line of Methodist Circuit Riders (on both sides of his family.) He came to Christ from a new age background and has served in full-time ministry across the Twin Cities in various House of Prayer type ministries. Jonny also does short-term “musicianary” work in the Middle East. He started attending Agape First in January 2020. Jonny is passionate about being a host for God’s manifested glory for our whole city — whether in leading worship, intercession, inner healing, or the arts. He has a deep appreciation for the freedom he has experienced in his struggles with brokenness and is passionate about others finding the same in God’s presence. Jonny also makes a mean cup of joe and loves his orange tabby tom cat. 

Email: Jonny @ agapefirstministries.org
Subscribe to Jonny’s E-Letter

Gracie Poole / Agape Staff

Gracie has been a student of God’s Word since she was very young. Through Christian schooling, her family, and attending the Awana program ( age 3 all the way through High school), Gracie was fueled with a desire to tell the world about Jesus.

In 2003, Gracie was falsely accused of being a homosexual by the church she grew up in. After friends and even family closed doors on her she entered into the LGBTQ+ community saying, “If they all think I’m gay then I may as well be gay.” After almost 17 years of living in the LGBTQ+ community Gracie found total freedom and transformation through the love of Jesus and support found in a few old friends that love Jesus, a renewed relationship with her family, and a new church family.

In 2020, Gracie moved west of Minneapolis to lay down roots and to help equip the Body of Christ to love those who deal with sexual brokenness. In 2021, she came on staff with Agape First Ministries in Minneapolis to join the efforts in making the name of Jesus famous, to help others discover the transformation and healing found in connection with Jesus, and to help unite the Church around freedom in Christ.

Email: gracie @ agapefirstminsitries.org
Subscribe to Gracie’s E-Letter

Vicki Joy Anderson / Agape Staff

Vicki Joy graduated from University of Northwestern in St. Paul, MN majoring in Bible and English with a writing emphasis. After many years in corporate management, Vicki Joy stepped out in faith to become a full-time author and speaker in 2019—a calling she received when she was ten years old.

Born with Hypertelorism, a facial deformity that inflicts one out of every 100,000 births, Vicki Joy endured more than 25 excruciating reconstructive surgeries between the ages of ten days old and fifteen. But the operations were truly the easy part! The hardest part was facing her peers and having to start over again every two-to-three years as her father’s job demanded constant relocations. Over time, this eroded Vicki Joy’s sense of safety and her ability to make secure, long-term attachments with others; which was only compounded by the insecurities that resulted from having a deformed face.

Homosexuality is only one of many ways the Adversary “kills, steals, and destroys” our sexual identity. Yes, in some cases, people fall into same sex relationships, while others, like Vicki Joy, become so emotionally isolated and self-protective, that the “natural desires” are repressed and eventually go away completely. In either case, we are robbed of all God had planned for us and for our JOY! But the enemy doesn’t have to win—there is hope and healing for this kind of brokenness too!

Email: vickijoy @ agapefirstministries.org
Subscribe to Vicki Joy’s E-Letter

Jean Mersberger

Jean Mersberger recently joined Agape First Ministries! Welcome Jean!

Email: jean @ agapefirstministries.org