Nate Wertz is in the business of building bridges.
A career path that began as a financial advisor meandered its way through stops like founding a coffee company, leading another, and other business leadership roles. Behind all of the unique roles he held was a heart for service, eventually drawing him to full-time work in the nonprofit space.
Wertz founded Hero’s Club in 2025, a Denver-based organization that exists to connect those with special needs and their families with churches who have a desire to care for them.
The nonprofit offers a collaborative connection to access, events, and resources for those who desperately need them. In short, they bridge a gap.
“The more that I leaned in over the years, God just gave me such a burden for these families that I just got to the point where I literally could not do anything else,” Wertz explained. “It was crystal clear what I needed to be doing.”
Hear how Wertz's background formed his heart of service, and how Hero's Club is caring for special needs families in our full conversation:
The call solidified even further when Wertz and his partners saw how wide the chasm often is between those affected by disability and Christ’s Church. Recent census data shows that more than 1 in 10 U.S. families have a dependent with disabilities, while, according to Baptist Press and Children’s Ministry, around 90% of families with an “additional needs” dependent do not attend church at all.
According to Wertz, just 14% of churches provide special needs programming.
This “hidden demographic” is often told that the church they desire to attend has no specific programming or resources to serve them, or even make it feasible for them to attend a weekly service.
As a result, special needs people and their families often feel isolated, unserved, and in the way.
“Can you imagine going to church and being flat out told you’re not welcome?” Wertz said. “That breaks my heart.”
Hero’s Club was started to be a connector between those longing for a church home with the capacity to serve them, and the churches who long to be equipped to welcome them.
While many churches lack the resources, staffing, and accessibility to meet these unique needs, the response since the launch of Hero’s Club has provided evidence of an overwhelming willingness to do so.
Wertz cites a goal of partnering with two churches by the end of 2025. Hero’s Club has already partnered with a whopping 18, including congregations in three other states, with as many as five more on the way by year’s end.
“God has been so good. I think it’s a testament to the need being huge and that it’s a God-sized need. Churches, I think, are starting to see some of those statistics and say, ‘Hey, we don’t have the answers. Can you help us find them?’
“Hero’s Club can’t do it, but God can. God can open doors. God can bring people together... God is doing some amazing things, and I think that the Church is starting to see it.”
Some of the resources Hero’s Club facilitates for churches include respite night events where activities and care are provided for disabled people, allowing a night of fellowship for them and a moment of rest for those under their care. Other solutions include educational material, health care services, and support groups.
In the spaces that Hero’s Club provides, Wertz describes “holy” moments of community between God’s people and himself.
“Jesus is right there with the most vulnerable,” Wertz describes. “God shows up in big ways in those settings. I think he is very near to those vulnerable populations in ways that we can’t even fathom. In these spaces, you can completely be who God created you to be. You can be yourself.”
God’s faithful hand is evident in all of it, from Wertz’s career evolution to the bridges big and small being constructed to enable a new avenue of Gospel-centered care to the vulnerable.
In reliance on that faithfulness, the Hero’s Club team is aiming for a Church transformed, a Body equipped and ready to serve special needs families – one partnership at a time.
“Pray that I just stay out of the way,” Wertz said as he described Hero’s Club’s ‘God-sized goals.’ “God is doing something incredibly special.”
To learn more about Hero’s Club, click here.
