I AM...THE GRACE PLACE

This is the year of ownership! In 2011 God opened a wonderful door of opportunity for our family here in the North Austin area. What God had in mind for us was something brand new! Though I had come here with 30 years of ministry experience what God had planned here was something I had never attempted. It was a church re-start.  

We launched the Grace Place name around 2014 and began to build our mission statement, identify our target audience, created our website, logo, and changed our signage on the property. It’s time for us to tell our story to our community and it is time to assume full responsibility for our campus and vision.

OUR PROPERTY: We have a wonderful campus of a little over 12 acres of property which include the following:

-Central Campus Building contains 10 classrooms 4 restroom, Auditorium, balcony, 2 offices and 5 storage areas.

-Community Center Portable includes a small kitchen and room to feed 100 people.

-Restroom Portable has 4 restrooms 2 men 2 women.

-Four Classroom Portables two of which have two separate classrooms each bringing the total Portable classrooms to 6.

-Administrative Portable has 10 offices, 3 restrooms, a conference room and 2 kitchens.

-There are 21 HVAC units on our property

-We receive 8 separate utility bills that include: main building, Portables, parking lot lights

- We have a soccer and baseball field

-There are 150 parking spots on our lot

-There are outdoor storage units on our property.

WOW! It can get a bit overwhelming at times to think about such a vast campus.

OUR CHALLENGE:

We are small in numbers for such a large campus as we start out. In all reality our expenses remain very low. We can grow into our buildings over time or re-build where we need to and have the Portables we do not need removed.

The real challenge surprisingly enough is this:

LOOKING LIKE WE LIVE HERE!

Weekends are growing in attendance but when visitors come to our campus they see about 100 empty parking spots as they drive onto campus.

Our auditorium is large enough that there are weekends when our attendance is low that to guest it appears not many people are here. In reality with children’s ministry, youth and our campus teachers we often have a good crowd just not all in the Auditorium.

These two factors have a real powerful effect on visitors. Statistics show most first time guests make up their mind about a church in the first 90 seconds they are on campus.

I have thought about putting cardboard car cutouts in those empty parking spaces. But a much better idea would be for us to invite our community to help us fill those spots.

THE GRACE PLACE STRENGTHS:

So much is right here at the Grace Place. Incredible people who are loving and welcoming. We have wonderful volunteers serving at the Grace Place. We are blessed with good leadership. We have an outstanding and growing worship team. Our weekend gatherings allow people to experience God in an incredible way.