Two Year
Ministry Plan

Last weekend, about 90 women from Grace, other churches, and the community attended a Biblical Femininity conference at Grace en Español! We were excited to see these women come together and learn from God’s Word as well as one another.

Ezer is our ministry to women and for women at Grace Church, and Biblical Femininity lays a biblical foundation for women to understand their identity and live out their calling. At this conference, ladies heard teaching about their purpose or calling as women created in the image of God and how to live out that calling in the season they are in. They also learned ways to invite, nurture, and partner with those God has placed around us and how we can corrupt these capacities because of our drive for autonomy. In the last session, every woman worked on the concern/responsibility resource from Ezer Applied. After ending with a time of worship, women had the opportunity to sign up to study Biblical Femininity in small groups over the summer.

Some of our attendees had this to say about the conference:

I learned we had a calling of being strong for others, and we are able to do so because God does this for us.

Working on the concern and responsibility resource really brought clarity to my life.

I had forgotten many of these truths, even though I have participated and led this study many times. I’m thankful for a fresh and true reminder.

We are thankful for this opportunity for our Español community of women to learn about their identity in Christ and process these ideas together. Will you pray with us that growth will continue? To learn more about Ezer’s discipleship opportunities and resources, click below.

Fer and Ana arrived a year and a half ago from Mexico for work. After only two years of marriage and a baby on the way, they were encouraged to begin a new journey. A week before traveling, they experienced the painful loss of their baby. This was the second time they had to deal with such painful news as a family. But, so as not to add further sadness to their families, they did not share the news and decided to walk through the grief alone.

The first month in the United States was the most difficult. Living in a hotel room, they dealt with grief, while also adjusting to a completely different culture. After a few weeks, they began attending Grace Church’s Pelham campus, where they were invited to our Español campus. Ana says that coming to Grace en Español and just hearing a "hello" made a huge difference in their cultural adaptation process and would later have a significant impact on their walk with Christ on a personal and marital level. They quickly became involved as volunteers and began attending re:generation. By being part of this family in faith and being available to Christ, they have been able to see God healing wounds in their marriage, developing love and patience in their hearts, and have been able to recognize that in Jesus, there is hope even in the midst of trials.

God granted them a third pregnancy, which they joyfully celebrated with their families and friends. At their second appointment, they found silence as they tried to listen to the baby's heartbeat. The unexpected news was accompanied by a surprising answer: peace. Ana and Fer were not the same parents they were a year ago. They had prayed for one more pregnancy and for God to use the baby's life for his glory, and he did. The church came together in care and love to minister to them in the midst of their grief. And now, after holding a memorial service for their three children, Fer and Ana are preparing to enter the world of reproductive medicine, trusting that God is in control and that, no matter what happens, they will always find joy in him.

Last month, Grace en Español was able to host Shame: Finding Freedom—a conference exploring what shame is, identifying the experiences, thoughts, and feelings that cause shame, how it affects us in everyday life, and how to live in the freedom and comfort Christ holds out to us.

Over 180 women attended the conference—some traveling from Nicaragua, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Dominican Republic. We also had women leaders come from churches in Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Atlanta as well as three different Hispanic churches in Greenville. Over 30 volunteers served by helping with hospitality, A/V, worship, parking, and security.

The goal of this conference was not only to teach women about shame, but to be a resource to equip other ministries and churches as well. After the conference, Grace staff and leaders hosted a lunch on Sunday to equip ministry leaders to start a shame study in their churches. We were able to share materials, digital resources, and guidance around helping women view shame through a biblical lens. As a result of this conference, we know that church leaders in Nicaragua are going through the material as well as women in a prison ministry in Colombia.

For our Español women, it was an impactful topic as shame is rarely studied or even mentioned in hispanic culture. As a result, 50 women are participating in the Shame: Finding Freedom study that launched 10 days after the conference. We also have a group of Forge girls going through this study.

What a blessing to see women from around the world come together and connect as sisters in Christ! We are thankful for all the leaders and volunteers who made this conference possible, and we pray that all who were impacted will continue to grow and experience life change. To learn more about our resources for women, click below.

Last year, we were excited to launch a newly revised version of our Ezer study, Redeeming Sexuality. This study takes a deep, biblical look at the roots of sexual brokenness, how it is manifested in our lives, and how we can find freedom and hope in the gospel. We are so thankful to have this resource for our women.

Part of the publication process is getting the book translated into Spanish for our Grace en Español campuses. These translations also allow us to share resources with our friends and ministry partners in Spanish speaking countries. Grupo Scribere is a translating service specializing in faith-based works. Founded by Franco and Elena de Medina, Grupo Scribere has translated all our Ezer works in the past, and we have developed a good relationship through working with them.

During the pandemic, Franco and Elena began listening to our Español teachings, and when they translated Redeeming Sexuality, they generously donated the cost of the translation (over $8,000) as an offering to Grace en Español. We were humbled by their generosity and blessed to accept their contribution to aid in our mission of making disciples.

To learn more about Redeeming Sexuality or register for a study, click below.

Exciting things are happening at Grace en Español, and one facet of their growth is the launch of re:generation. Those going through re:gen are among the first Spanish speaking participants ever to experience the curriculum, and we are very thankful to be working with Watermark Church in Dallas, TX to pilot the Spanish version of re:gen. To hear the full update from Robby Richard, our Grace en Español campus pastor, click the video below. To learn more about Grace en Español, click below.

Since its beginning, Grace Church has been on a mission to make disciples in local communities, which has led to multiple congregations worshipping in different buildings across the Upstate. One of these communities, our Latino brothers and sisters in the area, needed a church home, and in response, Grace en Español was launched in 2014.

Now Grace en Español has two campuses, located in Spartanburg and Taylors, with around 250 people gathering for teaching and worship at each campus every Sunday. Recently they’ve been able to launch a student ministry (Fusion through Forge), and this September started re:generation. Grace en Español is actually one of the first churches to implement the re:gen program in Spanish, and now has four Step groups and two Groundwork groups.

But in addition to discipling Spanish speakers in the Upstate, Grace en Español has a vast digital reach. Their resources, including teaching, conferences, and online services have been accessed from 32 different countries, including every country where Spanish is the primary language. Families whose churches are closed due to COVID-19 have been able to utilize their online teaching, and there’s even a group of women in a Colombian prison studying the Ezer curriculum.

“There is a church in Nicaragua that uses everything that we do, even our teaching,” Robby Richard, our Grace en Español campus pastor explains. “I send him my notes and he uses them to teach after watching our sermons. We are hoping to do an online sermon prep class with him and some of his leaders in November.”

As the Latino population increases in the Upstate, the need for discipleship and discipleship resources in Spanish only increases. Click below for more about Grace en Español.