Who We Are
A Short History of Grace
Grace Presbyterian Church belongs to the Covenant Presbytery of the The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Our denomination is the largest conservative Reformed Church in North America and in the English-speaking world. Our presbytery is made up of pastors and churches from North Mississippi, West Tennessee, Arkansas, and Missouri. With a host of other confessional Presbyterian churches leaving the mainline Presbyterian Church, Grace Presbyterian Church formed and joined the PCA during the early 1970s. For now over forty years, Grace Church has had a witness in a region traditionally bereft of the reformed faith. However, we thank God that the reformed faith is growing once again in many more quarters of the Church than our denomination, and that there are now four PCA churches in our region. We pray that in forty years, if our Lord has not returned, that there will be many more!
What to Expect
We thank you for visiting our website and encourage you to visit on a Sunday. When you visit you will find the following:
• A congregation that is warm, inviting, and enjoys fellowship.
• A congregation that is multi-generational.
• A service grounded in God’s Word. We seek to read the Bible, sing the Bible, and preach the Bible.
• A congregation that is committed to the ordinary means of grace ministry.
• A strong Word ministry. Our pastor usually preaches through entire books of the Bible at a time, with the knowledge that God’s Word is sufficient and applicable to all aspects of our daily lives.
• Monthly celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
• Our children’s Sunday School classes are using our denomination's curriculum for the youngest years, reading and studying through the Bible through One Story Ministry's curriculum in the middle years, and learning the Westminster Shorter Catechism before they join the adult class. Our adult class uses various written and video curricula. One Story, Gospel Coalition, Ligonier, Banner of Truth, and Compass Media Ministries are some of the ministries we have used for adult Christian education.
• Music that is God-honoring. Our goal is simple, Scriptural, and doctrinally-sound music. To this end, we use Colossians 3:16-17 as our guide:
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”
For this reason, we have a mixture of traditional and contemporary hymns, as well as Psalms in our worship.
What We Believe
We believe in the Gospel, which is the powerful good news promised before the ages began, revealed through the Holy Spirit, and fully manifested in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, where God in mercy dealt with His wrath upon sin on behalf of sinners.
Our officers subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith, Larger Catechism, and Shorter Catechism. This means:
We believe and teach historic, reformed doctrine because we believe it to be the teaching of the Bible.
We hold to the Five Solas (alones) of the Protestant Reformation: Scripture alone, Faith alone, Grace alone, Christ alone, and Glory to God alone.
We believe Calvinism simply is, “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3), or as Charles Spurgeon called it, “…strong old doctrines, that are called by nickname Calvinism, but which are surely and verily the revealed truth of God as it is in Christ Jesus.”
We believe in the Presbyterian form of government, which means our congregation is cared for by elders, as well as deacons.
We believe in the true marks of the church, and we seek after them by God’s grace. These marks are the preaching of the Word, the faithful administration of the sacraments (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper), and the loving and sensitive exercise of church discipline.
We believe and trust that Christ will build and grow His Church through His use of the means of grace—the preaching of the Word of God, the faithful administration of the sacraments, and the regular offering of prayers.
We believe in the Great Commission. Christ called us to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth, preaching and discipling all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Triune God. We seek to follow that commission in our city, our state, and around the world.
We believe our chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We seek to do that in every area of life including our families, our work, our worship, and our community.