Vision Statement

We seek to spread the Gospel of Christ in the U.S. and around the world and plant new churches both locally and globally.

Our Mission

1To serve the churches of Grace Churches by providing them with outside ministry. The Body of Christ grows as each member does its part. We believe that God makes some people to be "gifts" to the Church. They aren't gifts because they are better than others, but that they were created to serve the Bride of Christ in such a way that they are full-time ministers. We call these people “five-fold” because of the five gifts listed in Ephesians 4, and one of the goals of Grace Churches is to identify and train people like this. As they become more seasoned through experience in ministry, their input is of increasing value to the Grace Churches community. They often act as a "father" to the local churches and to the younger ministers who are developing. This sense of heritage and wisdom creates an atmosphere in which emerging ministries can come forth and new churches can grow without fear. We always encourage this kind of five-fold input in the churches by finding ways to bring pastors together at meetings, retreats, conferences, etc. so that everybody’s different gifts can operate with one another. Each church in Grace Churches is encouraged to get to know some of these “five-fold” leaders and develop a connection with their local church. This "ownership" of spiritual covering is expressed by bringing these leaders into their church for periodic ministry, asking them for wisdom in situations of conflict or need, and when possible, making regular financial contributions into that leaders' ministry. While we encourage this kind of five-fold operation, it needs to be an organic process, so we leave the mechanics of it in the hands of the pastors themselves. Throughout this process, we firmly believe that all the decisions made in a church come from it’s eldership. The “five-fold” leaders of GCI do not exercise control or pastoral leadership over the churches of GCI.

2To help the pastors of Grace Churches member churches by training them in both formal and informal settings. Whereas many pastors in Grace Churches have received formal education in a traditional setting, and we affirm the role of traditional education in many circumstances, we also believe that the primary setting to receive training for ministry is in the local church. Therefore, in an effort to combine academic preparation with the local church setting, we have created Grace College of Divinity (GCD). GCD is a degree-offering institution that provides both practical and academic training, designed to equip believers for service. GCD provides courses of study both for full-time ministers and for all believers seeking to grow in their knowledge of God. We encourage all the pastors and leaders in Grace Churches to take advantage of all that GCD has to offer. We believe that character takes precedence over anointing in the training of an individual, so we see informal discipleship in the context of the local church as essential to preparation for ministry. A person's life receives the impact of the local church leadership while serving alongside them and functioning in real ministry. By the time people in this apprenticeship setting finish the course of study, they haven't just learned about ministry, they have done it. One of the advantages to this model of leadership training is that it creates lifelong relationships among our member churches.

3To finish the Great Commission through mission sending. We believe that a New Testament church is a missions church. While we applaud the efforts of the multitude of mission agencies that exist worldwide, we believe that the local church should be the basic building block of world missions. Member churches of the Grace Churches network both work with agencies and send missionaries themselves. Even when we send a missionary through an agency, we maintain a close local church connection with that individual. We see local churches in the New Testament working very closely with apostolic bands that were sent out all over the known world. Missionaries are seen as extensions of our local churches into the fields of the world. Every local church is called to participate in the mandate of Acts 1:8 to reach its city through evangelism, its geographic region through church planting, and the world through mission sending.

4To work together to plant new churches. We target specifically selected cities for cooperative church planting, and we are working on the foreign field with teams of people in select places, the goal being to produce greater total impact. Within Grace Churches certain bands of churches come together in order to pray for, and ultimately reach, unreached people groups according to our various burdens. These bands of churches are undertaking prayer journeys and mission projects as they follow the collective leading of the Holy Spirit.

5To work in a cross-denominational way in our cities to further the Kingdom of God. God loves cities because God loves people. The heaviest concentration of people is in the city. We believe that it will take the entire body of Christ in a given city to reach that city for God. Each local church, regardless of its theological orientation, is a unique expression of Christ and, as such, it plays an important role in the reflection of God's will for that locality. The churches in the Grace Churches network are committed to working across racial and denominational lines with other life-giving churches to reach the cities where they are located. Since united prayer provides the foundation for all city-reaching efforts, we seek to build coalitions of pastoral prayer in all of the cities where our churches minister. In addition, we sponsor conferences and events where we can actively use such city-reaching methods. We encourage local churches to band together for services and other projects that will impact the city and demonstrate what true unity looks like.

Core Values

The central focus of Grace Churches is not our allegiance to a key charismatic leader but to personal relationships. We acknowledge the gift of Christ in each other, applaud our differences and build on each other's strengths.

Core Doctrines

• There is one living and true God, infinite in glory, wisdom, holiness, justice, power, and love.
• We use the term “Trinity” to describe God because He is one in His essence but eternally existing in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• The books which form the Old and New Testaments, as originally given, are completely inspired and free from error in the whole and in the part. These books constitute the entire written word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.
• God sovereignly created the world out of nothing, so that His creation is dependent upon Him, but does not comprise any part of God, and does not condition God’s perfection.
• God created mankind in His own image, in a state of original righteousness, from which we subsequently fell by a voluntary revolt, and as a consequence are guilty, inherently corrupt, and subject to divine wrath. From birth, we are all totally depraved and do not possess a will free from the dominion of sin.
• Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, is fully divine, being the second member of the Trinity, with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The Son of God became a man, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, uniting His divine nature with a true human nature, and He forever continues to be both fully God and fully man, two distinct natures in one person. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, fulfilled the requirements of the Mosaic law by His sinless life, suffered under Pontius Pilate, and died by upon a cross for the sins of all who place their faith in Him. By so doing, he satisfied the wrath of God caused by our sinful revolt (see above). On the third day He was raised from the dead in the same body, now glorified. He ascended into heaven and now, is seated at the right hand of God the Father, interceding for His redeemed.
• The Holy Spirit, eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son, is fully divine, being the third member of the Trinity, with the Father and the Son. He, through the ministry of regeneration and progressive sanctification applies the salvation which was bought by Christ, guides and comforts the children of God, directs and empowers the Church in fulfillment of the Great Commission, and convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.
• Salvation consists in the forgiveness of sins, the application of the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the gift of eternal life, and all the accompanying blessings that come with it. Salvation is a free gift of God, and received by faith alone apart from human works of merit, but this in no way relieves men of their responsibility to repent and believe.
• After repentance towards God and faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ, the believer is to publicly proclaim his identity with Christ by water baptism, in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
• The Lord Jesus Christ baptizes regenerated believers in the Holy Spirit, often with the consequence of speaking in tongues. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is an empowering work of the Spirit, which is distinct from the regenerating work of the Spirit, and is offered to every Christian.
• All the gifts of the Spirit including I Corinthians 12:4-11, Romans 12:6-8, and Ephesians 4:11 continue to be expressed in the Church today and are subject to the order shown in scripture.
• Communion (the Lord’s Supper) is to be taken frequently and offered to all believers except those who are living in unrepentant rebellion or immorality. The communion elements are symbols of Christ's body and blood and help us in the exercise of faith in the person of Jesus Christ as the only means of absolving guilt, shame, and punishment of sin.
• At death the souls of the redeemed are made perfect in holiness and immediately enter into the presence of Christ, enjoying conscious fellowship with Him, there to wait the resurrection of the body.
• The Lord Jesus Christ will return bodily, visibly, and personally to conform believers to His own image and to establish His Kingdom. He will judge the living and the dead and will enact a final separation of the saved from the lost, assigning unbelievers to eternal punishment and believers to eternal glory.

Local Church Discipleship