Grace Abounding

Are you new to the Washington D.C. Metro region? I’d like to share some helpful tools with you that have aided our church members in getting jobs, finding housing, and thriving in the area. In particular, I’m blogging this for several individuals and families who are prayerfully planning to relocate to Alexandria in order to help out our church plant.

Find Housing

• Roommate Connection – the best place to find a Christian housemate in the D.C. area, a forum run by McLean Bible Church.

Coffee Shops

• Indie Coffee Houses – Northern Virginia Magazine’s guide to coffee shops. An indispensable tool for a church planting team member.
• Starbucks – For you Starbucks lovers out there, I’ve got good news! There are more Starbucks cafes per capital in the Washington D.C. Metro region than anywhere else in the country. 1.81 Starbucks for every 10,000 people. Here’s where to find them.

Traffic & Travel

• Trafficland.com – View real time traffic cameras before you hit the road for work or play.
• Google Maps – Click on “Traffic” to see the color coded status of the roads you want to travel on. Or search for bus, or bicycle-friendly, or walkable routes.
• Get There Blog – The Washington Post’s Dr. Gridlock & their Transportation Team help you plan on how to get around with so many special events, construction, and traffic incidents in the area.

Cost of Living

• CNN Calculator – Calculate how much utilities, housing, food, childcare, and other expenses cost compared to where you are moving from. An important tool to consult as you prepare to move here.

D.C. Metro Area Alerts & News

• Alexandria City e-News – Alexandria city emails me updates regarding life in the city and how it may affect my day. I highly recommend this e-newsletter.
• Capital Alerts – Want to hear about travel disruptions, weather alerts, and school closings? This email list is the place for D.C. Metro wide announcements.
• Capital Weather Gang – Keep apprised of how weather will affect your commute or recreation travel plans. I follow this blog via twitter as well at @capitalweather

Jobs, Home, & Items To Purchase

• Craig’s List – My wife Christy found both jobs she held in the D.C. area on Craig’s List. In addition, our church families buy all sorts of used items, especially furniture, via this site.
• Google Real Estate Map – See homes for sale where you want to move.

Virginia License, Registration, Voting

• VA DMV – This is an indispensable site for you if you’re relocating to Northern Virginia. You’ll find DMV locations, forms, and explanations for transferring your driver’s license, car registration, and even voting in Virginia.

Grace Church’s Community

• CameronStationBlog.com – This blog shares about community events and news for Cameron Station, the planned community in which Grace Church of Alexandria meets for worship at the local public school.

If you’d like to share a resource that I haven’t mentioned here, please add your ideas via the comments section at the bottom.

Two weeks ago Grace Church’s leadership team had the privilege of sharing what we’ve learned about church planting at Church Planting Conference ‘10. We reporting back to our sponsoring church, Heritage Bible Church, all that God has been doing to grow our gospel community in the Washington D.C. Metro region. Quite frankly, we were stunned by the high level of interest in our church plant and grateful that many believers told us there they pray for our church family on a regular basis.

Pictures From the Church Planting Conference ‘10

Here our elders and deacons and their wives are show in a Q&A about church planting:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Sermons From the Church Planting Conference ‘10

Heritage invited the lead pastors of their five current church plants to present a vision & method for planting churches in a series of five sermons. Here they are:

Our Leadership Team is excited to be attending and speaking at the Church Planting Conference at Heritage Bible Church on February 21-24, 2010, in Greer, SC. You’re especially invited to a panel discussion about church planting with our elders & deacons and their families on Sunday night at 7 pm. Throughout the week we’ll be reporting back to our supporting church the work God is doing in changing us and planting a church in the Washington D.C. Metro region. Interested in learning more about church planting? Considering joining a church plant? Want to hear how you can pray for our Gospel ministry? Join us at the conference!

In addition to hearing from other churches planted by Heritage, Grace Church of Alexandria’s team will be participating in the following events:

• Visual Presentation on Church Planting in Alexandria, Virginia. A keynote slide presentation during evening worship. Sunday, 5:30 pm.
• Ministry Prospects Fellowship. GCA Leadership Team panel discussion on our experience joining and serving in a church plant. Sunday, 7 pm.
• Technology & the Gospel. A roundtable discussion on using technology for ministry. Monday, 1 pm.
• Making Disciples: The Marvel of Church Planting. A talk on the essentials of church planting. The idea? Gospel + Relationships = Growth. Monday, 7 pm.
• A Slice of Life. Christy Matías shares on church planting from a woman’s perspective. Tues, 10 am.
• Christ Our King in Church Planting. A devotional on Gospel ministry. Wed, Feb 24, 10 am.

Click here to see a .pdf with the full schedule of events.

Join us as we meet together to share ideas, pray together, and hear how God is displaying his glory by starting churches that live out the Gospel. Have questions about the conference? Contact us here. The conference is free; lunches & dinner are provided at Heritage for just $3.00. We’re delighted that our friend and pastor in Alexandria, Brad Lapiska, will be preaching at Grace Church of Alexandria while we’re away.

One year ago this month Grace Church of Alexandria hosted our launch service and began meeting publicly in the city of Alexandria. My wife Christy and I along with a core group of 14 others began meeting in November 2007, gearing up to start Grace Church. Then in September 2008 we launched a web site, invited our neighbors & friends, put up dozens of yard signs, and hung Grace Church posters in the city. Since that time, we’re amazed to see Christ forging a closely-knit church family from the varied individuals and families He has gathered to be Grace Church of Alexandria.

We’re Growing!

We have grown numerically, for we have about 60 people who regularly attend or have joined as members. An average Sunday brings about 45 worshipers to Samuel Tucker Elementary School where we meet. Particularly, God has faithfully nurtured and grown our congregation in spiritual growth and unity of the Spirit. I’m thrilled to see the friendships springing up, which are focused on helping each other see and savor Christ.

A Diverse Group

When you visit, you’ll find a a diverse group – vibrant believers who are Ethiopian, Japanese, Korean, Caucasian, African-American, and me, a pastor with Hispanic roots. We’ve been able to minister to Congressional interns who are here for  just six months, business people who are always traveling internationally, military families from the Marines, Navy, and Army, coffee shop baristas, and even a family of a major league baseball team player! We are residents of Alexandria, Arlington, Washington D.C., Springfield, Manassas, Quantico, Maryland, and Fairfax.

An Ever-Changing Congregation

The transience and mobility of residents in the Washington D.C. area poses challenges for starting a stable & mature congregation. Many families are posted here for one or two years for their military or government jobs. We don’t mind the turn-over, for it allows us to equip families to live by the Gospel and carry this God-centered way of living to the ends of the earth. One family has been called to a several-year stint teaching English in China, representing the King. Another has gone on to pastor a Gospel preaching church in Ohio.

Thank You

To all of you who financially give to Grace Church of Alexandria and to Jonathan & Christy Matías as missionary church planters, thank you! The Gospel is advancing inside the beltway of Washington D.C.! Your investment of prayer and finances is enabling us to baptize & disciple believers, herald the Gospel which brings life, and display the glory of God in our nation’s capital. We continue to rely on the gracious support of churches and friends to minister here.

You’re Invited

If you’ve never visited Grace Church, please be our guest! We endeavor to be a Christian church with a love for our community, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and each other. We seek to faithfully preach the Word of God as inerrant and true, words which bring life and hope. We constantly keep our gaze on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for there we find the power and grace of God to live for God each day. It is our prayer that in 2009 God will allow us to lead neighbors, co-workers, and friends to faith & repentance in Christ. Come join us as we build a new community for God’s praise together in the Washington D.C. metro region.

During the last week of July our church focused seven days on “Giving Back To Our Community.” We got our hands dirty by doing grounds keeping at Ben Brenman Park. Several teams weeded around trees & sidewalks while others picked up trash. Other volunteers roamed the park, giving out 300 free chilled water bottles to residents who were there. If you received a free water bottle, we warmly invite you to visit Grace Church of Alexandria. We meet Sundays at 10:30 am, just a few blocks away from the park, at the Samuel Tucker Elementary School in Cameron Station.

A hearty thank you goes to the 16 young adults from Heritage Bible Church in South Carolina who spent an entire week serving our church and helping us give back to Alexandria. They went from home to home of our members, doing yard work, delivering groceries, and babysitting to give parents’ a night out. They were a visible demonstration to us of the kind of self-giving love that God gives to us generously through Christ. They also put up over 300 posters inviting city residents to come worship with us at Grace Church of Alexandria. You can now spot our posters in Old Town Alexandria, Kingstowne, Springfield, Crystal City, and Pentagon City. Thank you, friends, for contributing to our church family and to our community!

Curious what a Sunday morning worship service is like at Grace Church of Alexandria? Take a look at a recent order of worship below.

On Sunday morning, a guide to worship like this one is handed out to everyone in attendance. Public prayers & Scripture readings are interspersed throughout our corporate worship. We sing a mix of old songs and new. The preaching of a text of Scripture stands as the centerpoint of our worship as we let God’s Word shape our lives. We regularly observe the Lord’s Table. Every Sunday we gather to resound with praise to the great God who made us and redeemed us!

Sample Order of Worship

Ever wonder what to pray for your pastors? Wondering how you can pray for the Leadership Team of Grace Church of Alexandria? Ligon Duncan gives 17 ways you can intercede for your elders and minister grace to them. Your pastors need as much prayer from you as you receive from them on your behalf  (Ephesians 6:18-19).

Don’t just pray these for your lead pastor. Pray this way for every lay elders of your church, and in our case as a new church plant, our Leadership Team families. That includes Garrett & Amanda Lee, Shayne McAllister, Peter & Jessica Beninate, and Jonathan & Christy Matías. Here are Duncan’s 17 ideas:

“Pray -

1. That [your pastor] would know and love the living God, would have a saving interest in Christ, being purchased by His blood, and thus would be bound to the Lord by the indissoluble bond of the Holy Spirit.

2. That [your pastor] would know, embrace and ever more deeply understand the Gospel and be shaped by it in life and ministry.

3. That [your pastor] would be useful servant of the Lord, that he would know and love God’s word, God’s people, and God’s kingdom; that he would be used to build it up and so that it prevails even against Hell’s gates.

4. That [your pastor] would study, practice and teach the Word of the Lord, by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

5. That [your pastor] would love to pray, because he loves to commune with his God, and that he would be a man of prayer, characteristically.

6. That [your pastor] would be ever dependent upon and filled with the Spirit; and that he would possess true Spiritual wisdom.

7. That [your pastor] would be holy unto the Lord. That his tongue and heart would be wholly God’s.

8. That [your pastor] would be kept from pride, and especially spiritual pride. That the Lord himself would be gracious to slay pride in him, and that your pastor would endeavor to always be putting pride to death, by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

9. That God would give [your pastor] guidance as to where to focus his efforts in ministry.

10. That He would protect [your pastor] from himself, from the enemy of his soul, and from all earthly enemies.

11. That no decision which [your pastor] ever makes or desire that [your pastor] ever pursues would restrict his ability to pour his whole soul into the Gospel ministry.

12.That many would be converted and many built up under [your pastor]’s ministry, to God’s glory alone.

13. That the Lord would bless [your pastor]’s wife, [. . . ], with holiness and happiness, Gospel assurance and Gospel rest.

14. That God would make [your pastor] a decent husband and father.

15. That [your pastor] would be a good friend to his wife, and love her self-sacrificially,

16. That [your pastor] would be a good daddy to his children. That they would love God, their parents and the church.

17. That [your pastor] would be a testimony in the home so that his wife might be able to respect him when he is in the pulpit, and so that [your pastor] will be able to feed her soul, along with the rest of the congregation.”

Thanks to Duncan for sharing this list at the Together For the Gospel blog and for G for bringing it to my attention.

Our church family recently had a fun night out in Del Ray, a peaceful main street community in Alexandria. We attended a special event at The Dairy Godmother, a delicious custard creamery. In honor of the Dairy Godmother’s German Wisconsin heritage, March 15th was “Brat Night” (that is, bratwurst, not as in “you little brat!”). They offer sauerkraut, bratwurst, and frozen custard to the community along with live accordion music.

The place was packed with hundreds of people inside the tiny shop and filling up the sidewalk outside. There’s nothing else quite so good as cherry cobbler with vanilla frozen custard from this wonderful Alexandria creamery. It provided our church family a fun night out of fellowship together in our community.

Open for Brat Night!

The accordion players really got into it.

Aah, what a great dinner, topped off with frozen custard. Thanks to The Dairy Godmother for providing our church a relaxing time where we could laugh and share life together.

More images from the day Grace Church officially organized as a local church in the Washington D.C. area.

A group photo of Grace Church’s charter members.

Over thirty visitors came to celebrate this Sunday with us from Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Virginia Beach, Virginia; and Greenville, South Carolina.

Signing the membership roll.

Our charter members rehearsed our church covenant, which is our commitment to each other and to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thanks to friends of our church plant for traveling here to help out in GraceKids and other ministries.

Enjoy these glimpses from March 1, 2009 when we officially organized as a local church.

The order of worship Christy Matias designed for Charter Sunday.

Unloading the trailer with our church’s equipment and setting up for worship. Thanks to our friends from Heritage Bible Church and other churches who showed up to lend a hand!

Shayne McAllister presides as the charter members vote to form Grace Church of Alexandria as a local church. Notice how he’s dressed compared to….

Garrett Lee was called up at 5:45 Sunday morning to carry out an urgent medical procedure at a hospital in Maryland. He flew back to Dulles Airport on a charter jet and arrived in his scrubs and a hoodie just in time to nominate Jonathan Matias for elder.

Check back later this week. I’ll be posting more photos taken by Kirsten Dietz at Grace Church’s Charter Sunday.