Vision of Grace Chapel

To walk the sidewalks of the near south is to come under the shade and shelter of the hundreds of Elms and Oaks that line streets.  These trees bring character, beauty, and shelter to the neighborhood. They are each deeply rooted and reliably present, indiscriminate in the shade they bring, and work together to form a network of life from which all benefit.  

In a broken world that often tempts us to walk with our heads down, the trees in our neighborhood invite us to lift our heads up to consider different realities.  

They lift our eyes up to the heavens and remind us of creation and the Creative Hand that made them. 

As they lose their leaves in fall and stand tall in cold winters, they remind us of the resiliency of life in the midst of hard times.  

When they bud and flower in the spring, they give a sense of hope and renewal.  

In summer the leaves provide shade that brings comfort and shelter to the vibrant life of the neighborhood. 

Quiet but significant.  Somehow both blending in and standing out in a faithfully present ministry to the world.  Branches always raised first in praise to heaven and then reaching down to give shade to others. Trees provide a wonderful metaphor for our hopes and dreams for our church and the individuals who call Grace Chapel home.  

We believe that Jesus is what every human heart needs more than anything else.  We also sense that it’s as hard as ever to “get to him”.   People need the shade of a humble, patient, fruit-bearing community where they can discover Jesus for the first time or perhaps recover their faith after a season of doubt, disappointment, or hurt. 

As we’re called to mission in our city, our state, our country and every continent, we want our lives to look like those trees -

Rooted in Grace. Reaching out in Love.

Our Mission anchors this extraordinary vision in ordinary life. Everything we do as a church is in pursuit of these three rhythms:

Mission

  • Growing up in Christ

    We are committed to always growing up in Christ together and we pray to do so in such a way that our lives might bear both the beautiful fruit of his kingdom and a stable, resilient and evergreen spirit that can endure the varied seasons and hardships of life. We want our Sunday worship and Monday chores to honor God, strengthened by an ever increasing knowledge of His love and overflowing in gratitude.

  • Rooting down in relationship

    Central to our mission as a church is the cultivation of a diverse and committed family of believers who care for one another deeply - a community that reflects the neighborhood that we’re located in and is committed to living out the “one another’s” of scripture together. As such, we are working to create a broad network of love that holds people of different perspectives together by emphasizing the main things as it relates to faith and the shared things as it relates to place.

  • Reaching out in love

    We are committing to reach out to our neighbor in love, extending to them the shelter, shade and support that we ourselves have found in Christ. We desire through small “mustard seed” acts of love and grace - both corporately and individually - to provide shade for those who need it. Through cultivating hospitable hearts, meaningful partnerships, and lives of service, we hope to be a faithful presence in our neighborhood and to our world to manifest the love of Christ.

Core Values

Place

Our neighborhood and actual neighbors being central to our calling , giving shape to our community life, outreach, worship and practice. 

Outreach that believes we have as much to gain and learn from our neighbor as they do from us. 

A commitment to keep our discipleship rooted in real life and relationships rather than abstracted from them.

Making  room for the needs and preferences of our neighbors.

A generous hospitality in sharing the resources of our building, our space, our time, our money and our tables with one another and our neighbors. 

Pace

A freedom to dream God-sized dreams within the healthy boundaries of city streets and real people and constrained time.

A reliance on the power of God through prayer to animate our ministry as we confront our own temptation to make it happen by our own strength and wisdom and force.

A community that is comfortable with slow-and-steady over fast, meaningful connection over volume, face-to-face over efficient, people over profit. 

Vibrant partnerships in ministry that thrive on collaboration, so that instead of doing everything, we can focus on the tasks we have uniquely been given to do.

A hopeful humility that allows us to rest when we need to rest, work when God gives us work and enjoy the harvest when God gives it. 

Grace

A generous orthodoxy that works to cultivate a compassionate, spiritually vibrant and emotionally healthy culture.

A focus on the redemptive work of Jesus and a desire to keep it central to everything we do.

A posture of welcome to messy hearts and messy people and messy situations because this is who we all are and God loves us. 

An ability to seek the kingdom of God with people who disagree with us, with love testing all things by the Word of God and keeping to what is central. 

Discipleship Pathway

What does this look like in practice?  At Grace Chapel we like to think of our life together as a journey with Jesus - the destination is the vision and mission above - the path to get there depicted below.

This is our discipleship pathway.  It is our way of picturing our vision, core values, and mission and putting them “into motion.”