About Us
Grace Community Church was established in 1980. Several local families had been impressed with the ministry of Camp Spofford (also affiliated with the Evangelical Free Church of America). They sought to form a local church with the same distinctive emphases on the Bible and on a personal relationship with Christ which were evident in the camp's ministry. After meeting in the Spofford Grange Hall for a number of years, we moved into our present building on Old Swanzey Road in 1988.
Grace Community Church is an Evangelical Free Church, a denomination which traces its American roots back to the 1880's. There are nearly 1500 Evangelical Free Churches in America and about 50 in the New England District of the EFCA.
"Evangelical" refers to our emphasis on the Evangel (which means Good News) message that God loves us and offers us a personal relationship through Jesus Christ. "Free" refers to our form of church government as being congregational. In other words, Free Churches depend upon the active participation of the lay people in the decisions and directions of the local church.
Grace Community Church is located on Old Swanzey Rd. in Spofford, New Hampshire (10 minutes from Keene, NH & Brattleboro, VT). For a map and complete driving directions, please click here .
Our Purpose Statement
The last words of Jesus Christ
provide the marching orders of every church. "Go therefore and make disciples
of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and
the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I
am with always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 28:19, 20).
It is clear that we as a
church exist to make disciples who exalt God's name by knowing Christ and
making him known.
OUR VISION
Our purpose statement describes
us why we exist. A vision statement describes how we as a church carry out this
purpose. Our vision is that all believers
are fountains of God's grace, overflowing in our worship to God, our service to
one another, and our compassion for the world (John 4:13-14; 1 Timothy
1:12-17). As God sheds his grace upon us, as the source of eternal life, we
in turn are to overflow in three primary ways:
-
Upward to our God in appreciation of
his favor. We worship God by our individual obedience to him in all spheres of
life. We worship God by corporately gathering to honor his name in singing and
praise.
-
Inward toward those in the Church
family. Every believer should invest in a spiritual "Timothy," circulating the
grace given them.
-
Outward
to those who
yet need to know Christ. We want to engage those in need of a savior with the
gospel and deeds that reflect our faith. This outreach may be in our own
backyard, community, or across the world.
OUR GOSPEL
Because
all believers are "Fountains of God's Grace," we earnestly desire to share the gospel
("Good News") of how God's love and grace can be experienced through Jesus
Christ. The "good news" God wants us to know is:
-
None of us
by ourselves are fit for heaven.
"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans
3:23). Sin is rebelling against God-actively in doing or thinking wrong things,
or passively in leaving him out of our lives.
-
Though God
hates sin, he loves us.
As with any wrong, sin must be punished. In dying on the cross,
Jesus Christ experienced in our place the punishment rightly due each of us:
"But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were sinners,
Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).
-
Christ paid
for the penalty of sin.
"For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also
received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (1
Corinthians 15:3-4). Christ's resurrection demonstrates that it was God who was
crucified. He has power over death.
-
Through
personal faith in Jesus Christ, we are made right with God.
"For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may
boast" (Ephesians 2:8-9).
-
Reception of
this "good news" transforms us.
We "live out the gospel" as we continue to trust in Christ to deal
with remaining sin both in our lives and in the world.
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God
for salvation to everyone who believes...for in it the righteousness of God is
revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘But the righteous man shall
live by faith'" (Romans 1:16-17).
Our Values
- The Bible. The absolute authority for all we do
- Prayer. A vital important spiritual discipline of communication
- Worship. Our creative response to the greatness of God
- Stewardship. Recognition that all we have came from and belongs to God.
- Evangelism. The starting point and indispensable catalyst to all disciple making
Our Forms
