Two Year
Ministry Plan

In a year when we have had to spend a lot of time apart, we are thrilled that over 1,300 Grace students and leaders were able to come together for Fallstar Game! This event featured opportunities for Fusion, 24Seven, and Forge students to hear biblical teaching, meet with their small groups, worship together, and enjoy some fun.

Our Fusion students considered the question, “am I a follower of Christ?” Students in 24Seven discussed what biblical expectations look like, and Forge students were able to hear a biblical perspective on the topic of anxiety. We are so thankful that each student could hear godly leaders unpack relevant and meaningful ideas to equip them as believers. We hope you’ll celebrate with us, and ask a student you know what they learned at Fallstar Game!

To learn more about student ministry at Grace, click below.

Senior Honor is our elder care ministry, and it has certainly looked different this year! However, after seven months of “no in-person contact” with our Senior Honor members at The Woodlands at Furman, we were recently able to host an outdoor service. Over 30 residents and several staff members attended, and it was life-giving to see our friends in person once again. Senior Honor members were able to worship together and sit under the truth of Biblical teaching.

We hope you will join us in praying that we can continue outdoor services and find new, creative ways to connect with our Senior Honor community. Please pray that God would continue to provide a way for us to make disciples in a changing world.

To learn more about Senior Honor, click below!

Isaiah 1:17 says, “Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.” One way we are seeking to defend the cause of orphans is through OVC Kenya—a partnership program that provides sustainable support and promotes long-term relationships with orphans and vulnerable children in Kenya.

Through OVC Kenya, individuals and families can become advocates for children in need. Each advocate not only contributes financially to help provide for their child, but they also send letters of encouragement and support. We have found this to be an amazing way to build relationships, get outside ourselves, and even create discipleship opportunities with our families.

Recently, we hosted an OVC Kenya Vision Night to give our advocates an update. 71 kids have been supported by advocates at Grace Church, and five of them recently graduated. It was exciting to hear their stories and how the program has helped equip them financially, emotionally, and spiritually. We hope you will join us in prayer and celebration around this ministry. To learn more about OVC Kenya, click below!

One of our goals at Grace is to build and strengthen healthy families. We all know that we live in a broken world, and this has affected many families in our community whose children have gone into DSS care. We have a unique opportunity to help with reunification efforts for these families by offering a parenting class—Families Count.

This six-week gospel-centered class is state approved, and it helps biological parents meet requirements to reunite with their children. In addition to offering the class, we are providing childcare, transportation if needed, a meal, and a mentor for each parent if they would like. What an amazing opportunity to show God’s love in a concrete way to those in need. We want each participant to be treated with dignity and know that they are valued.

If you or your community group are interested in providing a meal or being a mentor, please contact Beth Drake at [email protected].

To learn more about our outreach ministries and opportunities, click below!

Night of Prayer looked a little different during this season, but it was a sweet time of fellowship across multiple campuses. Many of us heard stories of life change, our Greer campus did a prayer walk, our Powdersville campus celebrated baptism, and other campuses found unique ways to come together. In all, 1,485 people were able to participate!

The purpose of this time is to unite in prayer and express our dependence on God in every facet of our lives. We certainly need to find our stability in God now more than ever. What a blessing to praise God as a body of believers!

To learn more about how to get connected to community at Grace Church, click below.

Our partnership with local churches in Allendale county is about much more than summer camp programs. One unique way we’ve been able to support the local church is by helping coordinate the Farmers to Families initiative—a grant that funds distribution of food directly from local farmers to families in need. We worked with the Allendale County School District to organize the drop-off and distribution of over 1600 boxes of fresh produce, allowing every student and staff member within Allendale County Schools to receive a food box.

What an amazing opportunity to help be the hands and feet of the Church! We hope you will continue to pray for our partnership in Allendale county. To learn about volunteer opportunities in all our Outreach ministries, click below!

Our Dignified Crisis Housing Ministry is a 2-year program designed to help individuals and families in crisis build a firm foundation with the goals of continued sobriety, gainful employment, financial independence, and spiritual maturity. We know that the individuals coming into our program are coming out of crisis, recovery, abuse, poverty, and neglect, and we want to give them a clean, safe, warm environment that validates their worth and invokes a sense of dignity and pride as they move into this next chapter of their lives.

One facet of this ministry is collecting donations and setting up a home or apartment for incoming families. Grace members and individuals from our community are donating everything from furniture to silverware, and it’s all stored in a warehouse in Greer. Once we learn of a need, we will find out the size of the family, children’s ages, favorite colors, activities, and any preferred styles—we then work with volunteers to pull donated items together, create a cohesive design plan for the entire home, and move everything in!

This is a beautiful, tangible way that we can serve our community. If you have donations for this ministry or are interested in volunteering, please email [email protected].

What a journey the past six weeks have been! Many of us practiced the spiritual discipline of fasting for the first time, and it has been exciting to see God work in our hearts. The focus of our Call to Pray & Fast was to grow in dependence on God and in unity as a church. We hope you have grown in awareness of your need for God in every facet of life.

Although our focused time of prayer and fasting has drawn to a close, we must continue to practice these disciplines with faith and in community. May God continue to unite us in praying with one heart for each other, our communities, and the advancement of his kingdom.

If you missed any of the pastoral devotionals or want more resources on prayer and fasting, click below to visit our resource page!

As summer comes to a close, we want to celebrate the harvest of fresh produce from the community garden at our Taylors campus! Throughout the summer, many volunteers have helped plant, weed, and manage the garden, and we are so thankful for their faithfulness. As a result, over 500 pounds of fresh vegetables have been harvested! Many in our community have benefited from this produce—Miracle Hill Boys Home, those in our Dignified Crisis Housing, families impacted by COVID-19, and many others.

Currently, volunteers are working on canning and freezing vegetables so we can continue to support our community, and others are planting cool weather crops. We hope you’ll join us in prayer around this ministry. If you’re interested in volunteering, please email Fran Williams at [email protected]. To learn more about outreach opportunities, click below!

Did you know that September 13-19 is National Assisted Living Week? As part of our celebration of those who serve in assisted living facilities, we want to highlight Senior Honor—our elder care ministry! We love that Grace is able to serve those in assisted living through prayer, words of encouragement, and acts of kindness.

One of our Senior Honor volunteers, Downtown member Rachel Belk, says this about her experience:

“It has grown my faith in learning how to listen and in being more open-minded. A lot of the time, these people are just so hungry to share their stories and have someone listen. Open-mindedness comes with understanding that each resident is in a different place mentally, physically, and spiritually. Sometimes loving the residents as Jesus wants me to looks like helping them tie their shoes, put on their jacket, or getting them a glass of water during the worship service. Senior Honor has taught me to be interruptible and to walk the halls asking God to make me present for whoever needs him at that time.”

“I always get an inexplicable boost of joy when I serve at Senior Honor; you get to care for others and at the same time gain so much wisdom from those who have walked through many more hardships, victories, and times with Jesus than we have.”

We hope you’ll join us in celebrating National Assisted Living week and praying for our Senior Honor ministry. If you’re interested in volunteering for Senior Honor, please email Julia Eldred at [email protected]. To learn more about Senior Honor, click below!

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected students in particular—many are learning virtually and no longer have the same extra-curricular opportunities. However, we have found ways to get creative for Student Kickoff this year! Forge, 24Seven, and Fusion have all begun a new semester, and we are so excited to see students meeting with their small groups and hearing teaching from God’s Word. This semester, students are addressing topics of Creation | Fall, Choices, and The Hard Sayings of Jesus. We hope you will join us in prayer for our students, their families, and their leaders as they navigate this season together. Click below to learn more about Grace Students.

The limitations of the pandemic have been especially challenging for our families who have children with special needs. Mosaic—our special needs and disabilities ministry—has been able to support these families by hosting a Mom’s Night Out. These women gathered for a time of fellowship and fun as they took a painting class together led by Joy Foster, member of our Pelham campus! This kind of opportunity to connect with other women is invaluable to our Mosaic moms.

To learn more about Mosaic, click below. If you’re interested in volunteering for Mosaic, please email [email protected]

One way we’ve adapted to life in a pandemic is by holding outdoor services. Many campuses now have large tents that can accommodate a service in the fresh air. What a blessing to be able to join together in worship and sit under the teaching of God’s Word! As the weather cools down, we hope you’ll consider joining us for an outdoor service.

To learn more about our small worship gatherings, or to register, click below!

For five weeks this summer, we joined together as a church to memorize Scripture. Thank you to all who participated and encouraged others along the way. It’s been great to see the fruit of God’s Word in our hearts, and we hope you will continue this important discipline in your own life.

Colossians 1:11b-12 says, “May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light.” What a gift from our Good Father to be able to “live in the light” and to have the light of his Word in our hearts!

To learn more about the Scripture Memory program and find resources to help in your own Scripture memory journey, click below!

Miracle Hill is one of the local ministries that Grace Church has partnered with over the past several years. The Miracle Hill Overcomers Center—a residential, biblically-based recovery program—exists to help men suffering from life-dominating addictions.

In a new facet of our partnership, a team of leaders is helping facilitate the Overcomers’ Saturday morning chapel service. Teachers and worship leaders from Grace are coming alongside these men to offer hope, resources, and biblical community. Working through our Men’s Round Table curriculum and leading in worship are just a few ways we can support Miracle Hill in their mission to lift up the marginalized in our community.

We hope you will join us in prayer for this exciting ministry opportunity!

To learn more about the Overcomers Center, click below!

There are both hard and beautiful parts of parenting within transracial families. Many foster and adoptive parents are ready to receive a child into their home with open arms. However, parenting a child of a different ethnicity often brings unique challenges and unexpected difficulties.

One way that Grace has striven to bridge that gap is by offering a training session—Raising Children of Color—with Brenda and Toney Parks. Both Dr. and Mrs. Parks have years of experience in dealing with this topic, from both a pastoral and welfare perspective, and we are so thankful for their wisdom in this area. Over 40 parents were able to attend the training and learn about topics such as the Black experience and identity neglect in a biblical context.

Are you interested in becoming a foster or adoptive parent? Want more information about being a guardian ad litem? There are also many ways you can help support our foster and adoptive parents—donate to our resource center, support a specific family, or be part of a wraparound group. However, the most important thing you can do is lift up these families in prayer.

If you’re interested in becoming a foster parent or moving towards adoption, click here to learn how we can support you in that journey. To learn more about volunteer opportunities, click below!

Thank you Grace Church! We were able to collect 875 backpacks filled with school supplies for children in foster and kinship care across three counties. There were also many school supplies collected for League Academy and Bryson Middle School, and we are thankful for a tangible way to support these community partners too!

Each backpack will be delivered with a bracelet attached that reads “You are Loved Forever—Romans 8:28.” We hope and pray that these children will know their value in Christ and that they are loved.

We hope you will celebrate with us and pray for these children as they begin a new school year!

We can’t believe our Kairos interns are wrapping up their summer! While the interns have served in numerous ways over the summer in their specific ministry areas, they were able to come together in July for Kairos Outreach Week and serve our Foster & Adopt ministry. Over the course of this week, interns helped sort donations in the Foster & Adopt Resource Center, went to various foster families to help with yard work, cleaned car seats at local DSS offices, and even hosted a story hour for children.

We are so thankful for these interns and their ministry of love this summer. Be sure to reach out and thank them for their hard work and dedication to serving our community! To learn more about internship opportunities, click below.