Grace Abounding

On Sunday, March 1, 2009, we celebrated God’s redeeming grace as our church plant officially became a local church. On this day we accepted into membership 17 charter members, affirmed our first officers, and adopted governing documents. Over thirty guests, including 5 pastors joined us for this historic day.

Garrett’s Incredible Adventure

Garrett Lee, a member of our Leadership Team, barely made it to Charter Sunday. He got called up for work for an emergency at 6 AM and only made it back after flying into Dulles Airport and driving as fast as he could to the last half. Christ was kind in getting Garrett, wearing his hospital scrubs, back to administer the vows of an elder and preside over the Lord’s Table.

Stranded Worshipers

Charter Sunday was only the beginning of an adventure for twenty-five friends from South Carolina who drove up to celebrate with us. On the way home, they got stranded in North Carolina in a large snow & ice storm. The storm forced three cars and a van full of friends to stop overnight at hotels. Pastor Eric Sipe’s car got stranded and out of gas on I-85 because the highway got shut down due to the ice & snow! Thankfully, they made it safely to a hotel after buying a 5 gallon container to bring gas to the car. Our dear friend John Gardner, an elder from Heritage, was stuck overnight on the highway with his family and a friend in their SUV because the highway was iced over and shut down. They could not get to an exit ramp, so they had to brave it out overnight in the car. We thank God for keeping our friends safe during their journey home!

I’ll post photos soon. No sermon was recorded. In lieu of a sermon, enjoy the following glimpses of our Charter Sunday. Soli Deo Gloria.

1. Order of Worship – the guide to worship for Charter Sunday designed by Christy Matias.

2. Church Covenant – commitment read aloud by charter members to love one another and this church family.

3. Vows of An Elder – the commitments made by our elders to our congregation and the congregation to the elders. Jonathan Matias was affirmed as our first full-time elder. Peter Beninate was elected Grace Church’s first treasurer, and Elizabeth Wiebe our first secretary.

4. The Story of Grace Church of Alexandria – the story as printed in our order of worship.

A Vision For a New Local Church

Nine years ago, two friends, Jonathan Matias and Shayne McAllister, saw a need for the Gospel in Washington D.C., one of the fastest growing metro areas. They began praying about starting a Gospel-preaching church near our nation’s capitol. In 2003 while at seminary together, Garrett Lee and Jonathan Matias often prayed that God would make this vision for God’s glory a reality.

Forming A Team

Enter Heritage Bible Church of Greer, South Carolina. Heritage has pursued a vision of establishing local churches in strategic cities nationwide. Under the direction of Pastor Eric Sipe, Heritage has mentored Jonathan in a pastoral internship, given financial backing, and provided supervision of the church plant. God called several individuals and families from Heritage to join the church planting team. This is the eighth church formed under Heritage’s guidance.

Relocating to Alexandria

So in November of 2007, the team relocated to the D.C. area and began meeting as Grace Church of Alexandria. They first met in the apartment of Jane Coates and then in the home of Josh & Christy Scheiderer. In 2008, Capitol Hill Baptist Church provided their church building in Washington D.C. to the team rent-free.

Gathering Worshipers in Alexandria, Virginia

In the fall of 2008, God provided our current meeting place, the Samuel W. Tucker Elementary School in Cameron Station, a community in Alexandria, Virginia. We gather together to proclaim the majestic glory of God and revel in his astonishing grace. God has rescued us from our rebellion through Jesus Christ and granted us fellowship with the Triune God. We gather to hear from God through his Word and apply the Gospel to our every day lives. The Holy Spirit is transforming us and unifying us together so we will draw others to worship our great God.

On this day, March 1, 2009, we celebrate God’s redeeming grace in forming Grace Church of Alexandria. Soli deo gloria.

This coming Sunday, March 1st, is Charter Sunday, a historic day in our church’s life. Grace Church will be receiving into membership our charter members and organizing formally as a church. God is growing his church!

What Is Charter Sunday?
Our church plant team has been meeting together in Alexandria and Washington D.C. since November 2007. Every week, two to three families from our community check out our new church, and a good number have decided to make Grace Church of Alexandria their home. We need elders recognized by the congregation to shepherd the flock (Titus 1:5). The elders need to know who is really a part of this church are so they can shepherd and give account for the flock with joy (Hebrews 13:17).

So it is time to admit believers into membership as charter members. The congregation will elect our first elder and other officers, and we’ll be voting on a statement of faith and constitution to guide our church.

Join Us For Charter Sunday!
Show up around 9:50 am this Sunday, March 1st. We’ll be providing refreshments for all our guests. Our corporate worship will begin at 10:10 am. Looks like 25 to 35 friends and family from out-of-town will be arriving to celebrate God’s work in our church’s life. Afterward, everyone is invited to Fuddruckers for a celebratory lunch together. That’s about the one place in Alexandria that can host everyone who is coming.

Christ Is Building His Church
In Matthew 16:18, Christ promised that he would build his church. He has been faithful and true to grow our church family by his amazing grace. Grace Church has grown from a small gathering of believers that first met for worship in Jane Coates’ apartment into full-fledged local church. Several people have been baptized. Every week a steady number of non-Christians are attending and asking important questions about God and the Gospel. We’re seeing the Gospel bear fruit in our lives and our relationships.

Why Membership Is So Important?
You might be wondering, “Why do you place so much emphasis on actually joining a church as a member? I’ve never been a member of a church, and I’m a good Christian.” Read this article by our Leadership Team to see what the Bible says about church members and its importance for every believer’s spiritual growth and life.

Thanks to the ten Grace Church folks who worked hard this Saturday getting our church trailer ready for use! Seven people braved the single digit weather to tear up the old floor, custom-fit new flooring, and prepare the metal shelves for installation. Three others provided childcare much of the day for those working on the trailer. What great teamwork! Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and Papa John’s pizza kept us warm in the arctic-blast wind. The trailer will really help us simplify our setup process for Sunday morning worship.

Lance and David tearing up the old trailer floor

AJ preparing the metal framework for our new flooring

Philip & Sarah getting the shelves ready for installation

Thanks to everyone who helped!

Our church planting team has completed our first full year of church planting near Washington D.C. Christ is building his church just as he promised! (Matthew 16:18)

A Growing Church
After a year, our church now numbers 40+ regular attenders. Our church is ethnically diverse, and we have many more singles and families with children of various ages. March 1, 2009 is our Dedication Sunday. That means we’ll be accepting members for the first time and adopting a constitution & statement of faith. To prepare for Dedication Sunday, we’re going through an 8-part membership class called Inside Grace Church for all who regularly attend the church. We are encouraging every regular attender to join the church. We are firmly convinced from Scripture that relationships in a church and the purposes for the local church are best achieved when individuals and families are in relationship together through membership.

Highlights From Our First Year
In 2008, God blessed our church by his grace. Here are some highlights:

- met in an apartment in Alexandria, then a home in Washington D.C., then a church basement near the U.S. Supreme Court, then a public elementary school (our current location);
- started a women’s Bible study that meets the first Monday of each month;
- our first baptisms (in a joint baptism service with Engleside Baptist Church);
- launched our web site & blog (www.graceofalexandria.org);
- continued an assisted living home ministry on the 3rd Tuesday of each month;
- speaking at the Engleside’s Missions Conference in October;
- teaching our membership class, Inside Grace Church;
- sent out the Scheiderer family to pastor a Bible church in Ohio;
- numerous non-Christians and visitors to our Wednesday night community group;
- speaking in Chapel and teaching a Bible class at a local Christian school;
- a unified Leadership Team (comprised of Garrett Lee, Peter Beninate, Shayne McAllister, and Jonathan Matias);

Pray For Grace Church
- Give thanks for the many reminders of God’s grace listed in the highlights above;
- Pray for the conversion of neighbors, friends, and church visitors;
- Ask God that relationships in the church will lead to growth in Christ.

Blogging More Actively
I’ll be more active in blogging about church planting and about God’s grace at work in our new church family. Thanks for reading!

Last night during Bible study, we celebrated Christmas by enjoying a warm Guatemalan holiday fruit drink known as “caliente.” My family always has a pot of this delicious drink brewing on the stove over the holidays, causing a holiday fragrance to waft through the house.

Several of you have been asking me to share this never-before-seen recipe. After much contemplation, I’ve decided to disclose how you too can make this delicious Christmas brew. Micah Brandenburg, Dan Rundle, and Micah McCormick–you must promise me you will not try to gain fame by claiming this family recipe as your own.

(1) Place the following ingredients into a large pot:

- 1 fresh pineapple peeled and sliced into bite-sized cubes (put the large slices of skin into pot for flavor)
- 2 apples (sweet, such as Gala) sliced into bite-sized cubes with skin on (put cores into pot for sweetness)
- 2 oranges peeled and sliced into bite-sized cubes (place large chunks of peel into pot for flavor)
- 3 cinnamon sticks
- 1 small jar of maraschino cherries (pour in 1/2 of the cherry juice but reserve the cherries)
- 1 1/2 to 2 cups of sugar (to taste)
- Add 8 to 10 cups water.
- Stir ingredients well.

(2) Bring the ingredients to a boil and keep it boiling until fruit is cooked (30 minutes to 1 hour).

(3) Serve a mix of the liquid and sliced fruit into previously-warmed mugs, placing a maraschino cherry gently on top of each drink.

(4) Enjoy in the company of friends and family as you contemplate the coming of Christ.

I’ve seen derivations of this which include soaked raisins, dried apples, and cloves. Perhaps one day I’ll try to add them and see how it tastes. Thanks, Dad and Mom, for the Guatemalan heritage and the “Caliente” recipe!

You can now follow Grace Church of Alexandria on Twitter! Click here or go to our home page and click where it says “Follow us on Twitter.” We’ll update you on our church planting efforts, tell you about new blog posts like this one, and share random happenings about our church family. Kudos to Garrett Lee for getting Grace Church started on Twitter.

Today I’ve been considering how to can explain the glories of the Gospel to young children. How can my sermons be understandable and relate to kids? When we’re teaching a class in GraceKids, our children’s ministry, how can we explain the Gospel in a way that makes sense to them?

Jill Nelson’s talk, “Presenting the Gospel to Children,” has helped me discover simple yet vivid illustrations and clear definitions for “sovereignty,” “the image of God,” “righteousness,” and “sin.” Her talk from the 2007 Children Desiring God Conference provides a wealth of ideas.

For example, you want to teach that God is our “sovereign ruler”? Give the children crayons and tell them to draw and color whatever they want. Then, pick up the box of crayons and put it to your ear. Tell them you hear the crayons insisting they want to be something different than what the child is drawing. But that’s not right–that’s not the way it works, the children will insist! Crayons don’t determine what they should be…the person coloring does that! Presto–you’ve just clearly illustrated God’s right as our creator to rule our lives…in a way that the children will grasp.

To download the .mp3 or her helpful handout, click here, then scroll  down to her talk entitled “Presenting the Gospel to Children.”

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

On November 9th, Grace Bible Church of Menifee, California, celebrated their church’s 5 year anniversary. Our two churches are closely connected because both were planted by Heritage Bible Church. Congratulations to our brothers and sisters at Grace Bible Church for 5 years of worship and service together! “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it!” (Psalm 118:24). Incidentally, the Matias and Lee families relocated on that weekend in 2007 to the Washington D.C. area to start Grace Church of Alexandria.

We thank God for our friends in Menifee for their commitment to the fame and glory of God. Five years after their first meeting together, Grace Bible Church is gearing up to send families from their own church to plant another church in the Los Angeles area. As the Gospel is bearing fruit in their lives, we can see God’s firm and unyielding commitment to advance his reputation through his church, the church of the Living God!

God’s timing is great! Our church has been on the lookout for a 6′x12′ storage trailer with a rear ramp and side door to haul our church equipment. After I sent out an email update to our church plant’s supporters, my friend John Stone, a car dealer, called me the moment he read it. He had just read about our need for a 6′x12′ trailer and happened to drive by a trailer at that moment that met all our specifications.

So, Peter Beninate picked it up this Saturday morning from York, Pennsylvania. The LORD has graciously provided a trailer with every feature we hoped for at half the cost we expected to pay! A church plant like ours seriously needs a storage trailer. Every Sunday morning a caravan of 4 to 5 cars has to load up our equipment (Bibles, hymnbooks, music stands, nursery toys, pack n’ plays, and yes, even a piano) and take it all to the Samuel Tucker Elementary School where we meet. The trailer will cut our work load in half and free our church planting team to fellowship and greet guests. A member is going to building shelving inside; then we’ll put it to good use. Here’s a picture taken with Peter’s iPhone.

Thanks, John Stone, for your sharp eye. And praise to our great God who is wholly committed to his church and graciously provides our every need.

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Last Sunday, God granted our church a rich time of fellowship & unity with Engleside Baptist Church, another local church in Alexandria. We celebrated a joint baptism & worship service where two from our congregation and four from theirs were baptized, picturing the power of the Gospel! Garrett shared our church plant’s story. Garrett, Shayne, and I fielded questions about church planting. I then spoke from 1 Thessalonians 2:1-8 on Treasuring the Gospel. This was the closing service of their missions conference, and we were honored to celebrate our first baptisms and our first joint worship service with another church. We can’t wait to worship jointly with them again!

As the Spirit forged genuine love and joy between our congregations, we experienced firsthand the truth of Psalm 133:1  – “How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” Thank you, Engleside Baptist, for your love for God and for the greater body of Christ!

Incidentally, a serious electrical fire broke out on Monday, the next day, in Engleside’s church & school building. Everyone was evacuated safely. We’re praying the building will be cleaned of chemical and smoke damage for them to worship there this Sunday. Please lift up the brothers & sisters of Engleside Baptist in your prayers.