Eric (TMC, ’08; TMS, ’16)
Ashley (Smith) (TMC, ’08)
Emma (13) | Ella (11) | Nora (9) | Jack (5) | Jude (1)
In 2018 a small team moved out to Rancho Cucamonga, California, to revitalize a dying church called Grace Fellowship of Alta Loma. The church had a couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank and an undeveloped piece of property in a beautiful part of town. Unfortunately, the church was dying. It had less than 20 regular attenders and had been considering closing its doors and selling the space.
Moving out there, our desire was simple. Preach faithful, expositional sermons, shepherd the flock well, disciple believers, and work hard to identify and train up leaders. We made our gatherings Word-centered, prayer-saturated, and robustly Godward. The team tried to model deep, open, and honest relationships. We established biblical expectations for members and biblical qualifications for elders. By 2020, the church had grown so much that we were able to be financially autonomous and appoint three elders to lead the church. We now have a booming ACBC-certified counseling ministry, leadership training groups, some TMS graduates with burgeoning leadership ability, and hopes to plant or revitalize churches in the near future.
We’ve maxed out our current building and are just beginning to move forward with a capital campaign to raise funds to expand our sanctuary. We are asking God to provide in surprising, unexpected ways, so that our church will see His wonderful provision and infinite capacity to care for His children. Please pray that the Lord would provide funds, generous givers, and even anonymous donors who would enable this great work to be completed. And pray for the wisdom of the leadership to guide the church through this process.
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