Our Passion
Each church has its own unique thumbprint and so does Grace. Below you will find what we believe to be God's unique calling for our church body and some of the core values we seek to embody as we try to live that out.
Our Passion
"To create an inspiring community of Christ-followers among all generations and nations in Central Michigan."
Core Value #1 - Loving God
Our passions have a way of permeating every aspect of our lives, right down to what we think about while we're waiting at a stop light. Other people soon pick up on those things, sometimes even more than we do. One thing commonly heard from those who visit Grace is, "Those people genuinely love God." It's surprising how many people say this. This is by far the number one "attraction" here at Grace. We've spoken with a number of people who have started trusting Jesus for the first time, and without fail they almost always cite this as one the most influencing factors in their decision to give Jesus the benefit of the doubt and start trusting Him to lead their lives. It all comes back to Jesus. The Bible says, "This is how God showed His love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."
At one time we were all feeling guilty, and for good reason. Our very consciences condemned some of the stupid things we did. All we knew of love was what we had experienced in our relationships with other people, and sometimes those experiences weren't so good. We had never experienced God's love. So we kind of hid from God, always wondering what He really thought of us. Then some new things started happening. It happens in different ways with different people, but the end result is always the same. At some point we heard that God loved us. However, that can be pretty hard to believe, and that's exactly why He proved it once and for all throughout the life, death, and resurrection of the Son He loves so much, Jesus Christ. By trusting that Christ has set us right, we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is our Friend and that He most certainly does love us. The Bible also says, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends," and that's exactly what Jesus did for us.
Core Value #2 - Loving Believers
One of the leaders of Grace has observed that, "Most non-Christians can't get past the connection between Jesus and the local church, whereas most Christians never even seem to make it." Most people equate an experience with the church to an experience with the God that church represents. The Bible says, "And God placed all things under his [Christ's] feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who "fills everything in every way" (Ephesians 1:22-23). The only problem is that people keep having bad experiences at church! We think going to church should be a lot like going to see Jesus. The Bible records an outing where Jesus was challenging a bunch of the religious leaders of his day and it says that, "The common people heard him gladly" (Mark 12:37). We think people should enjoy a service and be able to understand and apply the teaching they hear. We'll never change the message or downplay salvation through God's gift of grace, but we do believe the wrapping should be an accurate representation of what's inside, and that can be pretty exciting at times.
Core Value #3 - Loving All People
Most of us here at Grace like a good nap just as much as anybody else. However, if you really wanted to keep us up into the wee hours of the night, just tell us you're interested in knowing more about Jesus.
I've listed these as three separate answers, but they're really just three parts to one answer. This is who we are. Each one of these three responses are vitally linked to one another. We could not remove even one and still be Grace. We might be some other church, and it might be a very nice church, but it certainly wouldn't be Grace. We love God because he first loved us and proved that to us through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son Jesus Christ. He then made Jesus the head of the church and told it to make sure that everyone heard this Good News in a way they could understand. That's why we do what we do.
