Grace Covenant Church Mission & Purpose
Our Purpose is to obey our Lord's Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20), creating disciples, furthering the Kingdom of God, and in so doing building a church that is pleasing to God.
Our Central Mission is to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to adorn His Gospel with good works which reflect His love, compassion, mercy, and goodness.
We are determined to be Gospel-Driven in the manner in which we reflect a loving and caring community within our church family and the various means we choose as a church to minister to the larger community in which God has placed us.
We further seek to identify ourselves as a church that embraces the historic traditions of the Church, especially those traditions which clearly reflect the Truths of Scripture.
Who We Are
Grace Covenant Church is a loving, covenant community in which Christ is preeminent, and in which we seek to render honor and glory to God, especially through the worship and work of the church.
We are Reformed in doctrine, Presbyterian in church polity (government), and Evangelical in our desire to proclaim Christ as He is offered in the Gospel. We intend to be purposeful in our desire to teach the whole counsel of God, as explained in the Old and New Testaments of Scripture. Our goal in the teaching of the church is to make disciples and to equip them with a Christian world and life view. Christ is the Head and King of the Church. Our fealty and devotion are to Him and our love of one another is because of Him.
Further, we are so very conscious that the Church in our day is faced with overwhelming challenges. The culture in which God has placed us has been characterized as post-Christian. Increasingly, it would not be an exaggeration to say that much of America and the West has been anti-Christian. With this in mind, we would agree with the late, great Dr. James Montgomery Boice when he said,
“There is a sense in which our churches sometimes have almost stopped working. Years ago now there was an article in Christianity Today entitled, “Did Success Spoil American Protestantism?” The question of the title was answered in the affirmative, “Yes, it did.” ...As Protestantism won its great cultural victories in America, particularly in the nineteenth century, the Protestant church entered a period of internal decline that we see clearly today and will undoubtedly see more clearly in the years ahead. By its numerical and financial success, Protestantism became increasingly identified with American culture, and so became unable to speak prophetically to it, except in a few rare instances. Because of its very success the Protestant church became complacent. It became lazy. It lost its intellectual and cultural dynamic. And in far too many instances it largely abandoned a forthright proclamation of the Gospel. We need to reconstitute a working church in our day...Let me suggest three areas where true believers must work hard. First, we need to work hard in the intellectual areas. It is simply distressing to scout the shelves of modern way works on theology, biblical exegesis, literature, and social criticism, and find that the overwhelming proportion of the space is taken up by the works of those who deny the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. We need clear thinkers, winsome writers, and persuasive apologists who can reverse the trends we see around us. Second, we need to recapture a spirit of hard work in the social realm, for this is where the greatest action is taking place in our day. It was the strength of the Evangelical Christians united behind Wilberforce that led to the abolishing of the international slave trade in the British dominions in the last century. Evangelicals have led some of the great movements to abolish child labor and to introduce better working conditions into factories. Evangelicals launched the great social work conducted by the Salvation Army. ...Unfortunately, in this country most of the cutting edge of the evangelical’s social concern has been blunted, and the social arm of the church stands in need of resharpening. 1
“...We also need to work with renewed vigor in the area of evangelism. Evangelism has always been the one area of concern in which the conservative churches will cooperate. And yet, there has been a great falling short on this level also. People are not flocking to the churches today, even when they are welcome. Many will not even enter a Christian church. So if they are to be won, we must win them individually. We must win them, and we must do it on a one-to-one basis. We must make friends with those who are not real believers. We must come to know their problems. And we must be ready to apply Christian truths to them.” 2
We are especially concerned with the terrible sin of abortion which has claimed well over sixty million preborn babies’ lives since the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. This has been condoned and encouraged at the highest levels of our government and society. We believe that there are at least two victims in every abortion – the child and the mother. The mothers of aborted babies have been exploited and coerced by the abortion industry and a shameful culture of death. The silence of preachers in Evangelical churches about abortion is scandalous. The grave sin of abortion must be repented of and the sanctity of human life must be recognized and affirmed if America would escape the judgement of God.
As moral chaos and destructive behavior have been encouraged in America, families and especially children are in danger. The moral consensus which was predominant in America since the founding of the American Republic has been repudiated and replaced by secular humanism and nihilism. The Church must speak forcefully regarding the wisdom of a moral consensus which is based on the Decalogue.
We are not a political entity, but we are not reluctant to speak prophetically to the political and social issues of our day. Yet, we do not want to be a church that only talks about the problems of our day; we want to be doers as well. We desire to serve as Christ’ s hands, feet, and heart to those He directs us to. This is our calling according to the clear teaching of the Word of God. We believe that this calling is the consequence and privilege of believing the Gospel of Christ – “that Christ died, according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). To quote the Apostle Paul – “Therefore my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).
It is only when a person believes the Gospel of Christ and receives Him into his heart and life, that he is redeemed and saved. There is no other name given on earth or in heaven by which men might be saved – only the Lord Jesus Christ. There is salvation in no other religion or supposed means of redemption; salvation can only be gained by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
At Grace Covenant Church, we believe this without reservation or equivocation.
1. It must be acknowledged that the contemporary Salvation Army is no longer committed to evangelical orthodoxy.
2. Dr. Boice’s remarks are found in his commentary on Philippians.
“And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. 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 follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”