09/02/2026
Dear current & past members of Grace English Evangelical Lutheran Church & School, Pastors, Teachers and Alumni,
We had originally planned to have a centennial celebration when our congregation reached 100 years old, but the pandemic forced us to postpone that celebration. Our Church building has turned 100 years old & next year our school building also will. We believe this deserves a celebratory service of praise to our Lord for showering his Grace on Grace for over a century!
For the past few months we have been tossing around a few dates for this event & “had” settled on October. But it turned out that for a lot of folks who would like to attend, October will not work out. And so, now we are looking to make the event Saturday September 26th with a 3pm service followed by a dinner in the church basement
As many know, due to cultural changes in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood, attendance at Grace is way down & 2 years ago our school had to close. This unfortunately has made it uneconomically feasible for Grace to keep & maintain our present facility. And so, after prayerful consideration a difficult decision had to be made. It was voted to sell our beloved Church & School, “hopefully” to another congregation and to keep Grace alive worshiping in a much smaller, rented facility. There our pastor will be able to continue to pursue the Lutheran Hispanic Ministry to the local community.
As it turned out, we received a cash offer just before we listed the church on the market! We accepted this offer and are negotiating with the new church to stay and worship at Grace!
In light of this, we are hoping that September 26th works out for you & your families !
We apologize for the short notice of September 26th being less than a month from now. The sale of our church is scheduled to take place on Oct. 5th. For this reason we will have to get all the plans together rather quickly. Please let us know if you can attend & how many in your party by September 13th so we can get a final count to the catering company. Also, if you have any memorable pictures, books or other items you’d like to bring, please do as we will have memory tables set up.
We hope to hear from you soon & please keep our Church in your prayers!
Yours in Christ!
The Grace Church Council
