About Grace
Community Church
Helping people find and fulfill God’s purpose for their lives.
A Portrait of Grace
At Grace Community Church, that doesn’t surprise us. We have known for a long time that the deep thirst of man is to know the most fundamental question: “Why am I here?” Since 1998, we as a local church have devoted our time, talent, and treasure toward this goal: helping Roswell find and fulfill God’s purpose for their lives. We need to know it; we deserve to know it. The Lord Jesus Christ gave this stunning promise: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:39) Truly, as Dallas Willard wrote, "The ruined life is not to be enhanced but replaced. We must simply lose our life— that ruined life about which most people complain so much anyway." That’s why we’re so committed to helping people find that new life!
This was the burden of our founding pastor, Rick Hale and his wife, Mary. This is why they intentionally planted an interdenominational community church focusing on God’s purpose-driven principles. It may seem strange, that here, in the middle of the high desert of southeast New Mexico, God wanted to build a different kind of church: a church based not on the old traditions of religious polity or denominational framework but based on God’s clear purposes that match the deep need of man.
Was it a surprise, then, that 90 people crammed into a house in March of 1998 to hear Rick’s initial vision of a church built to help people find and fulfill God’s purpose in their lives? Was it a surprise that a few months later, 412 people signed the official charter to launch Grace Community Church? Not to those people. They prayed, searched the will of God, sacrificed, saved, gave, and served. As the church family continued to grow, the need for a permanent home became increasingly obvious.
In 2002, we moved into our current facility on 22 acres and quickly had to add a temporary Student Building to accommodate the rapid growth. In 2008, we added a Children's Building that serves around 200 children each Sunday and throughout the month in various ministries.
In 2013, the church paid off all remaining debt and began raising funds for the next phase of growth - a future Student Building. To date we have raised over three-quarters of a million for this future building which will provide dedicated space for:
- High School and Middle School Student Ministries
- Expanding Children’s Ministry
- Student and Children’s Ministry Offices
- Large Group Adult Ministry
- New Kitchen Facilities with a Terrace Café
- Repurposing of the current Student Ministry Building for our growing Young Adult Ministry (18-25 year olds) until the construction of our Future Worship Center that would require the building be moved.
The G.R.A.C.E. Vision
Why is Grace purpose-driven? Because a common denominator in our church was that people came from churches that seemed more eager to protect a historic religious paradigm (denominationalism) than cut to the chase and give God what he wants: a Forever Family that loves each other. Rick Warren wrote “Love cannot be learned in isolation. You have to be around people - irritating, imperfect, frustrating people. Through fellowship we learn three important truths: (1) Life without love is really worthless, (2) Love will last forever, (3) We will be evaluated on our love.”
read more The Values and Beliefs of Grace Community Church
Values
- Jesus is the central focus of our lives.
- People matter to God and to us.
- Authentic change is possible through the power God’s Spirit and prayer.
- We must love one another more than we love our opinions.
- The Goal of our gatherings is to celebrate and worship God.
- Our methods must be culturally relevant and our message biblically pure.
- The ministry is the task of all the members, not just the paid staff.
- Maturity results from the balance of corporate worship celebrations and small group participation.
- Children and Youth will always be a priority in our ministry.
- Integrity, accountability and excellence will guide every decision.
Beliefs
- We acknowledge the Creator-God as our Heavenly Father, infinitely perfect and intimately acquainted
- We proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, God in the flesh, the object of our worship and the subject
- We recognize the Holy Spirit as the third member of the Godhead, incessantly at work convicting, comforting, guiding and gifting.
- We affirm our confidence in God’s inspired, authoritative Word. We treasure the truths of the Bible and respect its reproofs.
- We confess that Adam’s fall into sin left humanity without the hope of heaven apart from a new birth, made possible by the Savior’s death and bodily resurrection.
- We believe the offer of salvation is God’s love gift to all. Those who accept it by faith in Christ, apart from works, become new creatures in him.
- We anticipate our Lord’s promised return, which could be at any moment.
- We are convinced that all who have died will be brought back from beyond — believers to everlasting communion with God and unbelievers to everlasting
separation from God. - We know the Lord is continuing to enlarge his Family, the Body of Christ universal, over which he rules as Head.
- We are grateful to be a part of a local Church which exists to proclaim God’s truth, to administer the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, to stimulate growth toward maturity and to bring glory
to God. - We believe in the biblical definition of marriage between one man and one woman and in the sanctity of life.
Meet Our Team
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