Grace Community Church is a vibrant three year old church located
in rural northwest Wisconsin. We currently meet in the Turtle Lake
School and have families from Rice Lake west to Amery and from
Barronett south to Clear Lake. We believe people can recognize
the way Christians love others. It's different than what is experienced
in the world. As a church, we are continuously striving for relationships
that build a strong community and help us grow in our love for
Jesus.
Mission
Jesus calls the church, His Body on earth, to continue His mission:
to seek and save those who are lost.
Vision
Spiritual leadership in western Barron and eastern Polk counties
Outreach directed towards:
Previously religious people for whom traditional church has little
meaning.
Non-believers: those who have no relationship with Jesus
in their life.
Wounded hurting people experiencing crisis of life such as divorce
alcoholism and other addictions.
Our Beliefs
We believe the Bible to be the inspired, infallible, and authoritative
Word of God. The Holy Spirit inspired the writers of the Old
and New Testaments pointing
to Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. We believe that there is One God,
revealed to the world as the Father, the Son, Jesus Christ, and
the Holy Spirit. By Him were all things created. Jesus Christ
came to earth both as a perfect man and God incarnate. He was born of a virgin,
lived a sinless life on this earth, performed many undeniable miracles, was
crucified for our sins, buried and was raised from the dead after three days
for our justification.
By the name of Jesus Christ, and His name only, can mankind be saved. Jesus
Christ sits at the Right Hand of the Father and will return personally
in power and glory to receive His Church unto Himself.
We believe that mankind is sinful by nature and will perish without
a saving relationship with Jesus Christ as revealed in His Gospel.
We believe that God
wishes that no one should perish, but that all would come to this saving knowledge
through the preaching of the Gospel to a lost and
hopeless world. We believe that fully devoted followers of Christ, acting in
obedience to God's commandments in Matthew 28:19 and Acts 2:38, will be baptized
in water as a
sign of their relationship with Jesus. We believe in the multi-faceted work
of the Holy Spirit to bring conviction of sin, revelation of the truth of the
Gospel of Christ, drawing of the sinner
to
God, adoption of mankind into the Body of Christ through regeneration, and
the distribution and administration of the Gifts and Fruit of the Holy Spirit
in
the believer's life. Jesus Christ is the "baptizer with the Holy Spirit" for
the empowerment of the believer through the Baptism with the Holy Spirit.
We
believe in the local church as a place where believers gather together for
edification, teaching from the Word of God, and ministry to and through each
other according to their spiritual gift. The local church provides identity
to its members as well as encouragement, interdependence, fellowship, correction
and discipline.
About the Pastor
In September of 2004 Ken, and his wife Connie, left Albuquerque,
NM and moved to Turtle Lake to begin Grace Community Church. Prior to
this, Ken served as an Air Force officer for twenty years, retiring in
1997. After leaving the Air Force he operated a management consulting
practice and then transitioned to full-time Christian work in 2000 as
Associate Pastor of First Family Church in Albuquerque. Ken thanks God
for parents who introduced him to a relationship with Jesus Christ at
a very early age in life. He says that his years in the military and
business world help him understand that God calls every Christian to "ministry".
He and Connie have two sons, Nathan (married to Sharon) in Corpus Christi,
TX, and Andy, serving in the US Coast Guard in Victoria, TX.
