On August 10, Grace Community Church, a Grace Brethren church in Goshen, Ind. (Jim Brown, pastor) celebrated the opening of their new 30,000 square foot addition. The new facility provides a venue for simulcast of the message from the main auditorium, space for young adults, room for children's ministries (Kids City and 56th Street), and an area for youth. A new foyer and a cafe were also included in the new construction. “Our building was flooded with people and it was very moving to see all the community taking place,” says Pastor Brown. “It was really incredible to think that we had three services happening at the same time -- Goshen main, Goshen link, and in South Bend at Movies 14.” After the sermon on “Why believe in the God of the Bible,” people were given an opportunity to respond, with 40 making a decision for Jesus.

By Jamie Hoffman

Since January, Grace Theological Seminary in Winona Lake, Ind., has been offering distance education programs, where students can earn their degrees through the Internet. Grace Online allows students from around the world to learn without interrupting their lives by moving to Indiana.

With the flexibility of online classes, students do not have to interrupt their busy lives. Current student Christian McAllister, from Canal Winchester, Ohio, is the youth pastor at the Grace Brethren Church in Pataskala, Ohio. As a Grace Online student, he can pursue his education while maintaining his ministry, as well as managing his family of a wife and five kids.

“What [Grace Online] has done is bring seminary into my home,” he says. 

After 40 years in the printing business as employee, manager, owner, and CEO, Michel Molliard is embarking on a new venture with Grace Brethren missionaries Dave and Sue Griffith to expand God’s work through the Grace Brethren in France.

Molliard, 59, retired in 2007 from his business, and is now serving his second two-year term as president of the Union of French Grace Brethren Churches, which he helped co-found. He and his wife, Dominique, have been married for 34 years and are parents of four young adults, the youngest of which is 21.

Dr. Jerry Bridges returns to the Grace Brethren Church of Columbus, Ohio, in February 2009 to explore how to live a life of transforming grace. He will be among the featured speakers at the fourth annual Grace Discipleship Conference. Steve Brown of Key Life Ministries will also be a featured speaker.

Dr. Bridges, who works with the Navigators, has written more than 30 books about knowing and pursuing God, grace, and the gospel. His first book, The Pursuit of Holiness, is a modern classic with sales over one million copies.

The conference, to be held February 20-21, 2009, will focus on “Transforming Grace,” building on last year’s theme, “In His Presence.”

“We realize that many believers want change but do not understand that they can be transformed,” says Dr. Glenn R. McElhinney, director of counseling and discipleship at the church. “The Lord offers us radical transformation and we should not desire to settle for anything less.”

The conference will be held at the church’s Worship Center, located at 8225 Worthington-Galena Road, Westerville, Ohio. For more information, call (614) 410-3212 or visit the web at www.gracebrethren.org for online registration.

Worship, the Golden Thread, a new 515-page paperback book on worship by Grace Brethren missionary Bruce Triplehorn, has just been released by BMH Books of Winona Lake, Ind.

Subtitled “Weaving Worship Through the Fabric of Life,” the book is a masterful exposition of scriptural teaching on worship along with examples from real-life, including Triplehorn’s work in Brazil and his use of marriage as a metaphor.

In the preface, Triplehorn says, “The Scriptures are a history of God’s relationship with man through worship. Worship is the underlying theme of every page and the glue that ties its long history together.” It is the key, he says, that unlocks both the meaning of the Bible and also the foundation of God’s redemptive plan.

Stressing that the great men of the Bible were called into ministry in the context of worship, he declares that somewhere along the way, the church has lost the golden thread and has drifted into a tendency to divide the Christian life into the sacred and the secular. He invites believers to engage fully in what he terms “a life-attitude of worship” in which “the Lord’s people are called to be full-time priests, full time in the ministry, having been set free from the restraints of religion to worship God in spirit and truth.”

For use as a small group or study text, the book contains “Where to Start” suggestions and questions after each chapter. After discussing misconceptions about worship, Triplehorn reveals in successive chapters worship in truth, worship as a choice, and the transforming power of worship. The second part of the book focuses on the place of worship in the areas of evangelism, discipleship, and leadership in the church.

Worship has been Triplehorn’s passion for more than 20 years. He, his wife, Lisa, and their children have been serving with Grace Brethren International Missions in a ministry of leadership training and mentoring in Brazil for several decades. He was called to missions after a career in entomology, having earned a Ph.D. degree in that science. He previously taught at Liberty University in Virginia.

The book, which retails for $21.99, is available through Christian bookstores, through online sellers such as Amazon and CBD, or from BMH at www.bmhbooks.com or by calling 1-800-348-2756. The ISBN number is 978-0-88469-3093.