One theme I’ve heard again and again over the years is that Grace is been a place of healing and restoration for people who come here — whether from spiritual, emotional, or physical pain.
Aside from people giving their lives to Jesus, nothing could please me more. Before I was a pastor, I was a counselor, and before I was a teaching pastor, I served as a Pastor of Pastoral Care. The emotional and practical side of our faith is important to me; I believe that knowing God can and should change our daily experience.
Grace has already given thousands of hours of free counseling, hundreds of thousands in urgent financial assistance, school supplies, Christmas gifts, free tutoring, and donations to our local schools, helping thousands of people with practical needs. We intentionally use our finances to the best of our ability to accomplish our mission of helping people take their next steps toward Christ.
OUR NEXT STEPS: CARE & COUNSELING MINISTRY
In 2019, we’re going to put a name and structure to what we’ve been doing all along. We’re going to broaden the influence and scope of what we do. We are going all on stewarding the stories of the people around us by launching a Care and Counseling ministry for our city.
Establishing care and counseling ministries is the final goal of the ONE Initiative journey we’ve been on for two years as a church — a challenge in generosity that has led us to do so much.
We want to love our neighbors in even more tangible ways, so we’ll be offering structured professional counseling and spiritual mentoring for people who are hurting. We’ll be hosting conferences and training to strengthen families and individuals. We are planning on recovery ministry in the future as well — divorce, addiction, and more.
This is the kind of practical love of Jesus our city needs to help them heal and hear the gospel.
THE 2018 CHRISTMAS OFFERING
The 2018 Christmas Offering will help us wrap up our ONE Initiative well and launch care ministry in the new year.
Every year at Christmas, you are so generous and faithful in supporting our mission. This year, we are praying for an unprecedented month of generosity at Grace: $750,000 total giving in December from across our campuses.
This is a big, audacious goal — it’s about 30% more than our total December offering last year. But we believe this is God’s next step for us as we steward the stories of the people around us for His glory. Anyone can give. If you made a ONE pledge, your gift will count toward that pledge.
I challenge you to give big this Christmas and help us steward stories of hope in the new year.
