Grace Abounding

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.

Our Opening Service

God granted Grace Church an incredible opening service this past Sunday, September 7, 2008! The LORD brought 14 local guests to worship with us from nearby communities including Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax. An overwhelming spirit of joy and praise to God pervaded the whole day.

“Rediscovering Jesus” Series

I preached on why and how we should treasure Jesus Christ. The text was Luke 8:36-50, the first sermon in our “Rediscovering Jesus” series. Listen to it here. We showed a presentation, “The Story and Vision of Grace Church of Alexandria” to share why we’re planting Grace Church.

Thanks To All

Thanks to the 16 young adults from our sending church who help us set up & tear down; to Eric & Cindy Sipe for making this day possible; and to dear friends and family from Virginia Beach, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey who joined us. All told, 56 attended our opening Sunday service.

Going to Fuddruckers

Afterward, over 40 in attendance went out to eat together at Fuddruckers burger joint. We sure packed into that restaurant! Ironically, we had a celebration lunch on the day the sermon title was: “Jesus Goes to a Dinner Party.”

How You Can Help

So many of you have asked how you can help our new local church! So in the next week, we’ll be releasing a wish list of equipment and supplies we could use. Pray that Grace Church will faithfully live out and preach the Gospel of our Lord. This is His church, and we pray that Christ will build his church for his renown (Matt. 16:18).

This Sunday we had many tears as our Leadership Team and I lay hands on one of our members, Josh Scheiderer, to consecrate him for a pastoral ministry. He and his family moved this weekend to Mentor, Ohio, so he may serve as senior pastor of Bible Community Church. Grace Church first met for Sunday worship in their home in the winter of 2007.

We are delighted that God has granted our small church family the privilege of sending out a family into another part of God’s vineyard. Josh, Christy, and their 3 children have taught us so much about loving each other and laughing a lot! We are confident that the Spirit is blessing Bible Community with their presence, and vis-a-vis.