A young church in Perry, Grace Church, will enter their newly constructed home on Houston Lake Road on Sunday, June 3. But before going into their building that Sunday, church members will have spent about 80 hours reading the entire Bible out loud, from Genesis to Revelation, from the pulpit of the church. Their heart's desire is to proclaim the Word of God before they go in to worship that first day.

Care has been taken to include every church member in the important aspects of building the church. During the groundbreaking ceremony last October, everybody in the church turned a shovel of dirt. When the walls were going up, church members gathered on a Sunday afternoon to write biblical passages from the Book of Romans on the wallboard in each room of the church. The entire Book of Romans is now hidden in the church's heart.

Grace Church's pastor, Ed McMinn, describes the growth of Grace Church and its new church home as nothing short of a miracle.

Several years ago, a group of close friends started gathering on Wednesday nights at The Swanson restaurant in downtown Perry for Bible study, prayer, and mutual support. They realized that their love of God and each other united them, and they decided on December 10, 2003, to form a church.

Their first task was to find a pastor, and they called Ed McMinn, a recent graduate of the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Pastor McMinn realized what a leap of faith it was for this committed group of Christians to launch a church, and inspired by their courage, he said yes.

The brand new church held its first worship service on Sunday, December 14, 2003, at the Ochlahatchee Clubhouse in Perry.

"When this wonderful group of folks asked me to be their pastor, I felt like it was part of the divine plan. How many people are called to build a brand new temple for God? It's just been a miraculous experience from the get-go. They made a decision Wednesday night, and we had church Sunday morning. We had a pianist, a music minister, a youth director, and a children's minister. God gave us everything we needed to have a church. We had almost 100 people that first Sunday. By the end of December, we had filled the clubhouse and couldn't meet there anymore. Then we started meeting at Rozar Park on January 11, 2004, and on January 14 we started Wednesday night fellowship," Pastor McMinn remembers.

By January 2004, Grace Church was a full-service church with a choir, Sunday School, a nursery, Sunday morning and evening services. and Wednesday night fellowship.

"Once we understood that the church was going to be financially viable, we began to ask, ‘What kind of church are we? '

In January we held a series of meetings on Sunday afternoons at Rozar Park, and we basically organized a church. We talked about what we believe and drew up our statement of faith. We wrote our mission statement by answering the question, ‘What has God called us to do? 'We wrote our vision statement by reflecting on, ‘What kind of church has God called us to be? '" said Pastor McMinn.

Grace Church is nondenominational and is organized using the effective principles from Rick Warren's purpose-driven church, with one board of ministers overseeing evangelism, worship, discipleship, fellowship, and ministry aspects of church life.

"One thing we stress is that every member is in ministry. You were not called to Grace Church to sit in a pew. Do something that you enjoy doing and do it for God. A great liberating thing about being a non-denominational church is that if we sense God leading us in a certain direction, then we'll follow. We tithe as a church. We give away 10 percent of everything we take in. We help support a missionary family. We bought fishing boats for the fisherman who lost their boats in the tsunami. We are furnishing a couple of rooms for Grace Village," Pastor McMinn pointed out.

Right now, Grace Church has 201 members, with about 230 attending.

Grace Church purchased over 9 acres of land off of Houston Lake Road in November 2004.

"We looked at more than 60 parcels or sites. On only one parcel did the owner come to us and say, ‘I have a piece of land I want you to look at.'We ‘re sitting on it now," McMinn said.

Pastor McMinn came into the ministry late. He was 53 when he entered seminary at the Candler School of Theology in Decatur, Georgia. He graduated in May 2003.

"I ran from God a long time. I've been in the US Army, a newspaperman and a college professor. It took me a long time to wise up to God's plan for me to be a minister," McMinn shared.

"There's a unity in this church that is God-driven. Having our own church building is the first real challenge that Grace church has faced. It will change us. When we were meeting at Rozar Park, we turned it from a community building to a church each Sunday morning. We set up chairs and our pulpit every week and then on Sunday night we'd tear it down. We've been very flexible, and we've had to be. What we have tried to do here is not get in God's way. Church members been willing to go where God leads us," McMinn said.

Grace Church has a Prayer Group meeting at 9 a.m. on Sunday mornings, followed by Sunday School at 9:45 and Morning Worship at 11 a.m. Sunday evening worship is at 7 p.m. Youth meet at 6 p.m. on Sunday evenings.

Wednesday night suppers begin at 6 p.m. with Bible Study and a children's program following at 6:45 p.m.

Wally Shaw is the minister of music; Robert Jones is the youth pastor, and Tesa Shelton is the children's minister.

For more information, visit www.gracechurchofperry.org or call 987-4722.