Two Year
Ministry Plan

Meet more of our Kairos summer interns! Be sure to say hi when you see them around. They’ll be with us until August, working with various ministries and campuses while serving and taking internship classes. Click below to watch this video introducing a few of them and stay tuned for more!

Check out these awesome summer interns! Be sure to say hi when you see them around. They’ll be with us until August, working with various ministries and campuses while serving and taking internship classes. Click the video below to meet a few of them and stay tuned for more!

This year, something new and exciting is happening in Allendale County. For the first time, our Camp Impact Staff will include six paid Junior Staff from Allendale County. These Junior Staff members will work closely with six Grace Church college interns to run the summer Camp Impact program.

Over the past three years, we have worked to incorporate leadership development through all of camp programming. Many of the campers have returned year after year, even when too old to participate in the camp (designed for 5-12 year olds). As our staff have invested in these young leaders and returning campers have grown older, this new opportunity to bring them on camp staff will be invaluable. We, along with our partnering local churches, believe cultivating youth leaders in Allendale County is key in promoting sustainable change.

Not only will the Junior staff members help run the Camp Impact program, they will also be taking classes to develop their spiritual knowledge, life skills, and job readiness. As they grow spiritually, academically, and in maturity, they can come alongside local leaders to build the credibility of the local church and further the gospel in Allendale County.

This year marks ten years since we launched the very first Ezer study, Biblical Femininity. Since then, we’ve tackled issues that weigh us down and sin that so easily trips us up—setting our eyes on Christ and seeking God’s word to transform our minds, hearts, and lives. We’ve seen God do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine in those ten years. Do you have an Ezer story? We’d love you to help us celebrate all that God has done and hear how God used the Ezer resources to grow you in your faith and life as a disciple. Would you share your story?

"I had a difficult time writing to the inmate I was assigned to at first. I made the mistake of Googling her—admittedly because I was curious to see why she was serving time but also because I was hoping to find out her age and maybe put a face to the person I was praying for. I thought there was absolutely nothing that I could find out that would give me any hesitation about writing her, but my heart sank when I saw what she was convicted for. I was prepared for murder but not the murder of a child. Her son died when he was two years old, which was the same age my own adopted son came into foster care because he had been severely abused in his biological home. It felt so close to home and in a moment I went from being so excited to write to this person, to feeling like I didn't have any words to put on the page. For several days I wrestled with what to do—I didn't want to ask for a new assignment and I knew the Lord hadn't made a mistake in assigning me this specific person. It wasn't until I spoke with my small group leader about it that I felt any clarity on why the Lord may have chosen this woman for me to write. When I described how I was feeling she asked me if I was sure I had forgiven my children's birth mother for the harm they had experienced and told me to pray about whether the Lord was revealing some unforgiveness that I had not even realized I was still holding on to. I got off the phone that night feeling unsure . . . I thought I'd long ago forgiven her. After praying for three days I felt like the Lord had given me such clarity that my feelings were based on my kids' history and my feelings of resentment that I was hanging on to (that I wasn't even aware of!). Once I accepted this, I felt such a weight lifted off of me in regards to writing the person I'd been given. I could think of her and see her picture and see that she was my sister in Christ, completely forgiven and redeemed, and that our sins were not comparable . . . each of us needed grace and salvation as much as the other. When I went to write my letter on Monday the words flowed so easily and when I put that letter in the mailbox I praised the Lord for loving me enough to reveal hidden places in my heart that needed to be worked through. He is so good. I would have NEVER thought when I signed up to write letters to an inmate that He would use it in such a powerful way to refine me and I am so grateful!"

Using our voices to praise God and affirm our beliefs through worship is an integral part of the Christian life. It is certainly a facet of the church that is more difficult during quarantine! However, we are excited to see the creative ways our people are using technology to keep worshiping God together.

Our Living Room Worship Sessions are one exciting opportunity to come together as God’s people and praise him for his goodness. We are thankful for those who are leading these sessions, and we hope you will take advantage of being able to worship from your home!

To stay connected with Grace Church and learn about current Covid-19 updates, click below.

Hey, church family! As meeting together over our phones and computers is feeling a little normal now, we are thankful that we are able to stay connected. We love to see the church together during these times—even if it has to be over a computer screen.  

Grace family, thank you for uniting together and finding ways to meet together virtually. The church is not comprised of buildings but of people—we are grateful to be in this with you. Please refer to our COVID-19 response page for all church updates and communication from our leadership team, dated by when we announced each. Hopefully, this will help answer any questions you may have!

Our next ministry partner is Project HOPE Foundation, an organization that offers a lifespan of services to individuals on the autism spectrum and their families.

Quick Facts:

-1 in 59 children is diagnosed on the autism spectrum.

-Grace and Project HOPE working together:

1) We have committed to giving Project Hope Foundation (PHF) $100K/year for two years.

2) PHF offers services at seven locations across the Upstate, including one Grace campus, and hopefully a second in 2020.

3) More than 200 Grace members from all ten campuses helped clean and paint the PHF school in Landrum last year.

-You can learn more about Project HOPE by clicking below!

Our first ministry partner out of four is Jump Start, a discipleship ministry that serves current prisoners in 17 South Carolina state prisons and also assists former prisoners with re-entry to society.

Quick Facts:

-96% of people who complete both the inside and outside programs do not return to prison.

-Grace and JumpStart working together:

1) We have committed to giving JumpStart $112K/year for two years.

2) We share staff: Inside Program Director of Jump Start, Cary Sanders, also works on Grace Outreach staff.

-You can volunteer with Jump Start by clicking below!

We have a team in Puerto Rico this week specifically working on earthquake relief through construction and care. They are helping build temporary structures and counseling many individuals and families who have lost their homes. Please be in prayer for them and especially for the families we are serving there.

What is your job title?
My job title is GroupLife Women’s Minister at Harrison Bridge!

How did you get to Grace?
We got to Grace by friends inviting us. We visited once when services were held in the Student Center then started attending regularly the first Sunday the “new” Worship Center opened.

What do you enjoy most about your job?
Shepherding and discipling women. I love building relationships with people!

What campus do you attend and what is your favorite thing about it?
Harrison Bridge. I want everyone to know how loving, resilient, and giving we are. So many incredible God stories and life change!

What are you most excited about right now?
What I am most excited about right now is our new campus pastor and the direction our campus is going! Re:gen is coming to Harrison Bridge this summer so I’m super excited about this ministry bringing life change to so many.

What is one interesting thing about you?
I grew up in a house next to the funeral home where my dad worked. We had a ghost named Aunt Bersha—for real!

As a church, we believe it is crucial to take a look back at how God has been working in the past as we move forward into the future. One way we do this is through a digital document called our "Year in Review" that walks you through everything that has happened in the life of our church in the past year. It is exciting, humbling, and encouraging! If you haven't gotten a chance to scroll through it yet, click below.

Continuing our recently-started three-year Grace Institute Nicaragua in Chinandega, Tom Fowler has returned for the week to train approximately 70 pastors and leaders. Tom is leading the participants through two studies: 1) Study of the Holy Spirit; and 2) Bibliology - A Study of Biblical Doctrine. These classes continue to lay the foundation for the curriculum to be executed over the next 36 months. Please pray for Tom and all the students who participate.

We are so excited for the opening of Jasmine Kitchen! Jasmine Road, one of our ministry partners, will open a restaurant this month, providing job training, employment, and career-building opportunities to survivors of sexual exploitation and addiction.

Jasmine Road is South Carolina's first two-year residential program for adult women survivors of human trafficking, prostitution, and addiction. You can find out more about Jasmine Kitchen and Jasmine Road below. 

We thought it would be fun for you to get to know some of our staff that you may not run into at your campus! Get to know Madei a little! ⬇️
What is your job title? Graphic Designer
What do you enjoy most about your job? Making Matt Williams' teaching slides every week. ;) But really, I most enjoy working with our awesome Communications team and pitching in on print layout projects where I get to bring to life ideas from our campus and ministry staff in engaging and interesting ways.
What campus do you attend and what is your favorite thing about it? Travelers Rest! We just joined a new TR community group this year and it meets two doors down from our house—now that’s local community! Not only is it convenient, but our group has been amazingly vulnerable, real, and intentional with each other in just a few short weeks.
What are you most excited about right now? Watching my two-year-old and my nine-month-old begin to play together—their giggles are just about the best sound in the world!
What is one interesting thing about you? Being from New Orleans, I was a princess in a Mardi Gras parade when I was eleven, so basically, I’m royalty.
What is your favorite of the series graphics that you've made for Grace? Probably the one I made for the Citizens series because it was the first one I ever created! I still remember where I was in 2015 when my boss called and asked me to make it.

This past weekend, we held our first annual Camp Impact Junior Staff Christmas Party in Allendale County. Junior Staff members (ages 12-17) are from the Allendale community and serve at Camp Impact during the summer, while also taking leadership, life skills, and bible classes for six weeks.

Nine volunteers from Grace Church attended the event. After sharing a meal and celebrating with Christmas games, we broke into gender-specific small groups, where we introduced Men's Roundtable and Ezer curriculum to these students for the first time!

As an extension of the last decade of ministry in Kenya, we have been working with our partner, Bernard Karubu, to expand our ministry into nearby Rwanda to help train and equip other pastors there. We are excited about ministries in three African countries (including our members, the Nelsons, living in Cape Verde) meeting together and the ways God is using our service and relationships in Kenya to meet needs and provide similar training in Rwanda. Watch the video below for more details.

Bernard also runs our OVC Kenya program as we continue to make efforts to care for orphans and vulnerable children. If you are interested in helping with this program, here's how you can help: We need 8-10 more advocates for our OVC high school and college-aged children. High school support is $50/month and college support is $100/month, and we ask advocates to commit for the duration of the student's schooling. You can apply to be an advocate below.