Sharing God’s Love
The mission of GFC includes reaching out beyond our walls to love others with God’s love. We do so both locally through ministry partners in our community and globally through missionaries and partnerships. We have also adopted “Mountain View Elementary School” and have formed an incredible growing partnership that reaches the kids, their parents, their teachers, and even the surrounding community.
Local Outreach
Reaching Our Community
We not only serve our community through our partnership with Mountain View Elementary, but we also serve through programs like Feed the Hungry, which provides lunches once a month to the needy in downtown Johnson City, and Joy Prom which celebrates individuals with disabilities and gives them an unforgettable experience with their caregivers.
We know that we can’t do it alone. That’s why we have a network of partners which provides expertise, concentrated efforts, and open doors for us to join them in addressing specific needs in our community. These ministry partners offer many opportunities for serving locally.
We Love Mountain View
Our partnership with Mountain View serves one of the most economically and educationally challenged areas of our city. Since 2010, we have sought to be an encouragement to the school and community through tangible expressions of God’s love. Our goal is to build trust and relationships with the staff, children, and families through direct support and involvement. Great opportunities are before us and there is much to be done!
Our Local Ministry Partners
seeks to glorify God through service to women, their families and others experiencing unplanned pregnancy through empowering individuals to make healthy life choices that emphasize the value of human life.
pursues God’s glory by helping to fulfill the great commission through a strategic ministry of Win-Build-Send. Winning students and faculty to Christ, Building believers in their faith, and Sending them out to reach others.
is an adventure-camp with the mission of glorifying God by proclaiming His Word so as to cultivate in people a passion to intimately know God resulting in a heart of worship, a desire for purity, and a Christ centered vision for their lives.
When children are removed from their homes out of concern for their safety, they are usually brought to a child welfare services office to await placement. This wait can be a few hours to several days. These children often have nothing with them and are scared, lonely, hungry, and in dirty clothing.
Isaiah 117 provides a comforting home where these children instead can be brought to wait – a place that is safe with friendly and loving volunteers who provide clean clothes, smiles, toys, and snuggly blankets. This space allows children to receive the comfort and care they need while child welfare staff can do the necessary paperwork and identify a good placement.
Global Outreach
Go and Tell
Those who go must be sent. We know that the world is broken, hurting, and in need of God’s love, so we are intentionally a “sending church.” We host international trips, and we work with global partners who express our strategic focus of bringing the gospel to the world.
GFC’s partnership with Compassion International enables us to pursue a significant role in “releasing children from poverty in Jesus’ name.”
Over 400 children are sponsored by GFC families through Compassion. Over 120 children are from Dios es Amor, our partner church outside Lima, Peru. GFC typically sends a team on a Compassion trip each year, offering sponsors in that country a chance to meet their sponsored child.
Our Global Ministry Partners
BEE World (Biblical Education by Extension) provides seminary-level training to church leaders who otherwise have no access to biblical education. Our partnership with them is focused on their training in Kenya.
Benjamin, a native of the DR Congo, leads International Christian Assembly (ICA), a local fellowship of Christians from different nations, races, cultures, languages, and backgrounds living in the Tri-Cities, who have chosen to worship God together.
Earle and Cara serve at our local East Tennessee State University campus, overseeing faculty/staff ministry locally and nationally. With over 30 years of experience and enthusiasm, they continue to impact those on campus and beyond. Earle also serves as an elder here at Grace Fellowship.
Hope Over Crisis partners with the persecuted church to deliver both immediate and lasting hope and transformation to people facing crises, with a global focus on relief and development efforts.
Restore Ukraine is an organization whose mission is to restore dozens of cities and hundreds of communities for Ukrainian families. Their vision is to provide humanitarian support in Eastern Ukraine until all have food and a home.
Kamate and Kavira serve African international students in our area with Bridges International, a ministry of Cru. Originally from the DR Congo, they bring years of experience serving students and leaders in Francophone Africa before moving to Northeast Tennessee.
“Nomadic Tentmaker” is an associate based out of France, who is not named for security reasons. Her work includes writing and discipleship/friendship with non-believers.
Steve and Laura Persenaire have been with MAF since 2005. After serving for 17 years in Indonesia, they now work to bring in new missionary staff. As an MAF Mobilizer, Steve is responsible for recruiting in the Southeast US region, traveling to colleges and universities as he walks alongside prospective MAF candidates. This is a vital role to the future of mission aviation as it’s so critical for MAF candidates to be prepared well for what they will face on the mission field. Steve’s many years of missionary aviation experience help him to be a good fit for this role, which involves networking and coaching. Steve and Laura, and their two daughters Julia and Katie, are active at Grace Fellowship Church, volunteering in different ministries.
An additional partner family serves in an area of the world where gospel activity is not welcome. For their safety and on-going ministry they are not named here.
