HISTORY

The Foundations of Grace
Grace Community Baptist Church began in April 1985, with a dream of having a church built on commitment to the Great Commission of Jesus. This would be a church dedicated to God's purpose as given in the Scriptures.

Guy and Gay Holloway began meeting with five other couples in Guy's parents' living room, and it wasn't long before we had to move to larger quarters. We went through a variety of locations before we had the opportunity to buy the land on Pump Road and began planning a building-"A place for God's purpose."

Founding Commitments
Our infant church began with "ministry philosophy" ideas that still guide us. Three ministry statements are critical to understanding the historic calling of the church. The first of these is the church's statement of purpose, which is actually a summary of the Great Commandment (Mt. 22:35-40) and the Great Commission (Mt 28:18-20). The short form Grace's Purpose Statement is "Loving and enjoying God and people." This a way to remember these twin teachings of Jesus that aptly summarize our assignment as His disciples.

A second ministry statement, "All to maturity; many to leadership," describes our commitment to training every member to be a discipler of disciplers, or to faithfully live out God's Word and lead and train others to do the same. This reminds us that every Christian can achieve spiritual maturity as a disciple-maker, and that God has specially called many to go beyond that to exercise gifts of leadership.

A third statement is that we want to maintain "maximum ministry in modest facilities." This means that, while facilities are necessary, good stewardship demands that we do all that we can with what we have.

God Provides a Place for His Purpose
We prayed about where to locate our church, considering various locations in Henrico County. After the first year, we moved from our living room beginnings to a Glen Allen child-care center for more space. A year later, cramped for space again, we moved to another child-care center, this time in Innsbrook. The church began to pray for wisdom concerning a permanent location, but land in the Short Pump area was about $45,000 per acre, seemingly ruling out any location there.

Our ideas are not always God's, and we were disappointed when several land purchase possibilities fell through. Eight to ten of these surfaced; we pursued them, and they either turned unavailable or were unsatisfactory. We fought discouragement, believing that God had His purposes, His place, and His point in time.

In 1988, a businessman recommended to Earl Thompson, who was developing 300 acres on Pump Road, that he set aside some of his land for sale to Grace. This same businessman then donated $100,000 toward the purchase of the land to help bring the cost within reach of our little flock and we were able to buy seven acres-enough to grow a church to five or six hundred people! This was an amazing provision of God and a wonderful, encouraging sign of His movement in our midst!

In April 1990, we moved our meetings to Godwin High School. Not only did this put us close to our property, it also yielded more room, more flexibility, and lower cost - we were able to rent space for $60 per week. We began having picnics, cook-outs, and volleyball games on our own property.

Not only did God provide us with land, He paved the way for us to build in less time than we could have foreseen. Our property was located on undeveloped land and the costs to develop it were high. Infrastructure requirements such as road paving, curbing, and entrance turn lanes were prohibitively expensive. But God's timing was impeccable: Henrico not only widened and paved the road, they also provided 1,000 feet of curbing and gutter, moved a storm sewer to accommodate our future entrance, brought the utilities across the road ahead of the road-pavers, and provided a left turn lane at the church entrance. All of this was associated with the expanding infrastructure which meant the county paid for it. Our church saved about $225,000.

Another provision involved a gift of land. The same businessman who encouraged the developer to make the land available to us, and who donated money for its purchase, also gave us a tract of land off Lauderdale Road. This land was to be sold and the proceeds used for our future ministry facility. It turned out to be impossible to sell to private developers due to the county's plans for infrastructure, but in 1994 Henrico County realized they needed it, and they bought it for $265,000. This was money the Lord provided for our ministry facilities!

Another timely provision involved our own land. Developer Thompson needed an outlet for Burnside Lane onto Pump Road for the Steveston neighborhood. He agreed to pay us $30,000 for the right-of-way. This property was not very useable to us and the construction of Burnside Lane gave us an additional future entrance onto our property.

Virginia Baptists are noted for encouraging new churches. In 1990, they gave us a $25,000 grant for land and construction, and in 1994, they gave a second grant of $25,00, encouraging us and assisting our efforts.

With all of these developments, we realized that God considerably lightened the financial load of providing a permanent place for His purpose. Not only that, He confirmed our purpose of producing disciple-making disciples. On April 26, 1998, we celebrated our first service in the new building. The cornerstone bears the words of Colossians 1:28, ". . .that we may present every man complete in Christ." 


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