06/22/2022
Grace Baptist Church San Jose called me to be their Senior Pastor a little over a year ago. On this past Sunday, Juneteenth, they symbolically Installed me as Senior Pastor, inaugurating publicly our journey together. I was humbled to have ministry giants like Michael-Ray Mathews, Doug Avilesbernal, and Keith N. Williams, Sr. to help us usher in this moment.
I was not overly evangelical about promoting this occasion, because I knew the economic challenges facing your family, and mine. But now, that the dust and confetti (not really, unless the sprinkles in the waffles counted) are settling, I decided to advocate for a cause near and dear to me: Grace Baptist Church.
Google has made it such that our church is publicly defined largely by tragedy. And though there’s no wishing away circumstances, we don’t have to let that singular moment wrongly define and confine a congregation. Shortly after that moment, we would become targets of White Nationalist sympathizers, and became even more deeply committed to reforming our model for being church, with the realities and challenges faced by unimpacted public perceptions. We were losing our identity as a Church.
Over the past year, we engaged in a spirited discussion about the use of our property. Over the course of three major votes, more than 2/3’s consistently supported a comprehensive development project that would give the church greater long-term physical, fiscal, and missional security. The project chosen by the church will construct modernized and expanded facilities for Grace at our present location; construct copious housing to alleviate crises pressing communities like and writ large; build an endowment that Grace can expand mission and ministry effectiveness; and will allow us to more effectively support new projects that radically alter the housing debate landscape.
But the reality is: we have to remain viable until then.
The Pandemic and public anxiety have hurt our ability to be the generous congregation we are known to be throughout the , and operationally, we are beginning to reduce needed services to our community, because we can’t afford it.
That’s where you come in…
Grace needs a few pledges of temporary financial support from our friends and loved ones, to make sure we don’t cut too deeply. We are developing some new opportunities to get involved in Grace, and help us provide opportunities to a variety of marginalized constituencies in our community. We want to build and into people daily robbed of their dignity. That means changing how we do business.
As a true-believing Pastor, I know that God has not brought Grace to the edge of an historic breakthrough for our entire community, just to have a challenging economy shutter our penchants for preaching or pressing the powerful for change in San Jose. So I’m asking you: if you’ve ever had an idea greater than you in your heart or in your mind, please consider supporting a vision here at Grace that has a promise and a plan.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-grace-not-hate/
Or at https://www.graceinsanjose.org and hit the tab to donate directly through PayPal.
Your support will be meaningful and measurable here at Grace. But what you do now, will bridge us to the moment when we can be the greater blessing to this community that is needed, and that God has provided through these opportunities and open doors.
Please join us in enacting a vision Big enough to more accurately reflect the love of our God, for people in great need. Give Today!
