Two Year
Ministry Plan

This past Sunday, August 20, was Student Kickoff! We had over 1,400 5th-12th grade students across all campuses come to Fusion, 24Seven, and Forge program! This semester, Fusion (5th-6th grade) will be studying Key Relationships, 24Seven's (7th-8th) curriculum will be about the life of a Believer, and Forge (9th-12th) will be looking at what we idolize over God in #LifeGoals.

Click below for more information on Grace Students, and follow us our new student Instagram account at @GraceStudentsSC!

Did you know we have an instrumental album by Grace Church Worship called Be Still? Perfect for reading, driving, and studying—encouraging us to slow down in a world full of distractions. Available anywhere you listen to music.

Another summer of Camp Impact is in the books! Here's a snapshot of our summer in Allendale, SC:

-90 campers (most have been at Camp Impact for all 3 years of camp) 

-213 Forge students (278 including leaders) served on short-term trips to run camp and provide hands on support all summer

-8 Camp Impact staff who acted as camp leadership for six weeks while living in Allendale 

-19 junior staff members (11 from Allendale, 8 from Grace Church) who acted as "camp staff in training" while taking leadership and Bible classes) 

If you want to learn more about the camp staff experience, click below (applications will open in November). And be sure to watch the video below of this past summer in Allendale!

One of our ministry partners, Project HOPE, was recently featured in Greenville Journal. We're excited for the long-term work they are doing to serve people with autism, and we are grateful to get to partner with them as they continue in their ministry. Click below to read the article or learn more about Project HOPE. 

Over 900 backpacks full of school supplies were collected across 8 of our campuses last weekend. Thank you to all who participated in this year's Back-to-School Drive!

We want this to be a starting point for building relationships with kids in care and those who work with them throughout the year! We have full-time staff available to help you consider how you might support the foster community, whether working with children directly or serving those who do. We have people in our church body who provide free childcare, freezer meals, haircuts, tutoring, birthday cakes, home repairs, and so much more; the possibilities are endless! Click below for opportunities and to reach out about other ways to serve.

Our Anderson and Greer campuses will meet in their new buildings for the first time on August 11! Click "Watch" to get the full update from Bill White, one of our teaching pastors.

Our Downtown campus has been partnering with League Academy for the past school year and will continue to walk alongside their faculty, staff, and students in the upcoming year. In the last year, here are some of the ways Grace Downtown was able to serve:

-Kept the food pantry stocked for 28 students to take home each weekend

-Funded an after school program for students who cannot afford the normal costs for after school care

-Recruited mentors (partnership with Mentor Upstate)

-Had community groups write encouraging notes to teachers and pray for them

Click below to hear from League Academy principal as we celebrate the past year!

Our Greer campus will be moving into their new facility soon! We recently got to have a prayer night together at the new building, specifically praying for God to use our church and our new place of worship to make disciples in our community. As we thought through Ephesians 3:13-21, we walked through each area and prayed over the ministry and discipleship that will take place there. We took some time to talk through how we want to glorify God (v. 21) by making mature disciples, “made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God”(vs. 19), and living out our core value of being prayerfully dependent with boldness due to God’s ability to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think (v. 20). We also had the opportunity to write prayer requests on the floor of the stage for our friends and family in the community. We are so thankful for this opportunity! Our first service in the new building will be Sunday, August 11.

The Nelsons, Grace Church members, are serving in Cape Verde with their two children. They lead a gap year program called Global Year, sending students on a gap year to live and work in areas of the world that are either unreached or have very little access to the gospel.

We are making a two year commitment to the Nelsons as our first missions partners. Missions partners are covenant members serving in a ministry capacity outside of the church, and they will receive financial assistance as well as ongoing encouragement and support. Please join us in praying for the Nelsons and their ministry in Cape Verde. Click below to watch their video or click here to learn more about Global Year.

"We had been talking for years about wanting to do a mission trip as a family but never could decide on what organization to be involved with. So when Grace decided to embark on the trip to Chicago, we were excited to be a part of it. We feel like it is important for our children to see us sacrificing and serving outside of our immediate community and being a part of what God is doing in other areas of the country as well as the world. Before the trip our children were not excited to be spending their Spring Break working rather than relaxing. We had several conversations about being others-centered and how we could be a blessing to that community. By the end of the week, our son said he wished we could have stayed longer. It was really special to watch our kids work as a team and interact with the children. Our kids got to experience firsthand the excitement of the children and the impact we could have in just one week. It was humbling to see that the adults who are working at the church there have chosen to give up better paying, more comfortable careers in order to be a part of positive change in their community and bring the love of Christ to their neighbors. We were grateful to be a part of that mission for even a short time."

To learn more about our international mission partners and upcoming mission trips, click below.

In two days, June 22, three Grace Church members and staff leave for follow-up training with pastors and leaders in Nicaragua, specifically in Rivas (2010-2012) and Matagalpa (2013-2015). Merritt Anderson will be teaching our "Leadership Values" course, David Vaughan will be teaching a "Study of Parables", and Wes Cavin will be leading a session on "Growing Church/Christian Unity".

Summer interns are here! Be sure to say hey to these guys when you see them around. They’ll be with us until August, working with various ministries and campuses while serving and taking internship classes. Watch this video introducing each of them!

Learn more about our interns or learn more about Grace Church internships.

• Finance department transferred $250,000 of our reserve savings to the only African American owned bank in South Carolina, recently renamed Optus Bank.
• Ongoing initiating of personal relationships of our members aimed at understanding, reconciling, and partnering in the gospel (e.g. a pastoral and leadership reconciliation group in the Powdersville and Easley area continue to sponsor events like “Raising Children of Color” through our foster care ministry).
• Contributed $40,000 to help with remodeling efforts at two churches, one African American and one multicultural.
• Pledged monthly support ($1,250) to two church plant/revitalization efforts in Greenville.
• Working with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) to recruit students for leadership and ministry training.
• Sharing one of our summer interns with Mountain View Baptist Church.
• Sending (7) Camp Staff to Allendale, SC for the summer to run a six-week day camp for local youth
• Consulting with several African American churches on facility upgrades, best use of land, and affordable housing opportunities.

Eight college students are spending seven weeks of their summer running Camp Impact in Allendale, SC. They got here last week and will be here for the rest of this week training before they head out. If you're going on a trip this summer, be sure to say hey! Click the video below to meet our Allendale Camp Staff!

To read more about our partnership with Allendale, click here.

We have the privilege of writing biblically-oriented worship songs that our congregation can enjoy. "Hope to Carry On" is a Grace Church Worship original song based in Paul's letter to the church of Thessalonica. In the midst of persecution and uncertainty, Paul was calling the church to stand firm in their faith and to walk in holiness as they anticipate the return of the Lord. Not just in their own power, but through the encouragement and life change that comes through selflessly loving each other.

"And may the Lord make your love for one another and for all people grow and overflow, just as our love for you overflows. May he, as a result, make your hearts strong, blameless, and holy as you stand before God our Father when our Lord Jesus comes again with all his holy people. Amen."

— 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13

Because we are driven by the desire to do discipleship in the community we are surrounded by, it is important to us to have a permanent location for each local congregation in our church family. Our Greer and Anderson campuses are under construction in completely new buildings and will be finished soon! Click below to hear Matt Williams give an update on each.

Zach Mercado, our Harrison Bridge Students Director, will be teaching this weekend on 1 Thessalonians 5:23-28. Get to know him a little! ⬇️

1. How did you get to Grace? My sisters, Tori and Shannon, began attending Grace Downtown while I was in college and I started attending with them.
2. What do you enjoy most about your job? When students get a taste of how much better Jesus is than their sin.
3. What would you want everyone to know about the Harrison Bridge campus? HB births a new child every 3.5 days.
4. What are you most excited about right now? The NBA playoffs and Carlisle's (my wife) art!
5. What is one interesting thing about you? I am a huge cinephile.

An important partnership for us is supporting DSS across several communities in the Upstate. One of the ways we have recently done this is through our Foster and Adopt Resource Center. Some of our volunteers from the resource center have cleaned and replaced the toys in the DSS visitation rooms for foster children and their parents. We will continue to clean and replace toys in the rooms for DSS as needed. Thank you to everyone who is helping out!

To learn more about our ministry for foster and adoptive families, click below.