Facility: Dreaming BIG

I’ve spent the better part of my time at Grace learning about its history through conversations, cleaning out files and rummaging through the archives. You can read more about the Grace story along with archive photos and documents on the history page of our website. From what I’ve gleaned the 1970s and 1980s were exciting times at Grace with a body of believers that were taking great risks in following God’s leading. Dwell on these things for just a minute with me:

• It was just a handful of some 13+ families who decided to gather their financial resources to purchase the original acreage at 501 West Lincoln Avenue.


• From that first major step, they decided to add on to the building three times in the span of 12 years.


• Then, at the young age of 20, the church decided to take on a $2.8 million project to double the size of the facility.

In addition to these physical changes, I’ve heard stories of vibrant church services with the narrow hallways (in what is now the Young Chapel area) congested with people. And what’s impacted me the most are recollections of corporate prayer meetings, focused on the expansion, some that went around the clock with people praying in each room of the facility at that time for different shifts. It’s exciting to be building upon that history today.

I need to explore the $2.8 million project that was launched in the late 1980s. From the birth of Grace, it seems that while teaching the Word, the church was constantly confronted with the challenge of keeping pace with the exploding growth. From an outsider’s perspective, it appears that by the late 1980s the church wanted to overcome the growth challenge once and for all. So they dreamed BIG.

Funding is a key component of any project, but Grace’s dream was so large that most financial institutions considered it too great a liability for them to absorb for the church. Even the Grace Brethren Fellowship’s financial organization, designed to assist churches expand, wasn’t willing to absorb the total cost of the project. Only one financial institution had confidence to offer Grace the full $2.8 million loan.

Those huge dreams of the 1980s successfully addressed the growth-challenges for the next 10+ years. With the additional space, we’ve been able to offer Christian education through the 12th grade and we’ve been able to launch a Christian daycare program. We are seeing fruit from these ministries. That’s in addition to the other things we’ve been able to do with this facility that I’ve documented in previous entries:
Nap Time
ROI for Auditorium

Why do I mention this now? The mortgage will be paid off next month. Over the past 16-odd years, Grace has never missed a mortgage payment. We’ve had some lean years, but God always provided the necessities; our ministry has grown, been refined, and grown some more.

We need to share the Grace story, there’s too much evidence of how God has led, worked and provided through the years to leave it in a file drawer. We need to share the Grace story with everyone who attends a ministry at Grace. At 36, we are a young church, but we’ve got a rich history that points people to our Savior.