Name: Grace Church
Address: 1160 Butterworth Road, Canton, GA 30114
Phone: 678-493-9869
Website: www.gracecanton.org
Services: 11 a.m. Sunday, 7 p.m. Wednesday
Worship Style: Traditional
Average Sunday Attendance: 65-75
Minister: Robie Hembree
Denomination Affiliation: PCA Presbyterian Church of America
Mission statement:
Our purpose is to reach people for Christ and help them grow as disciples of Christ.
History:
Grace was organized as an independent Baptist church by a little more than 100 members from Oakdale Baptist Church in 1972. Hembree came on board in 1999.
Pastor’s path:
In his hometown of Villa Rica, Hembree was raised going to church until his family stopped attending when he was a teenager. A couple of years out of high school, he had a renewal of his faith and sensed a call to ministry. No major awakening; just a growing desire.
The pastor enrolled in Northland International University in Dunbar, Wisconsin, and earned a bachelor of arts in pastoral studies in 1993. After graduating, he went through a tough personal trial and was a single parent for a couple of years until he met wife, Talena.
Hembree served in his home church in Villa Rica before accepting the call in 1999 to lead Grace Church. He is working on a master of arts in religion through Reformed Theological Seminary in Atlanta, and should complete that degree next year.
Ministries:
Grace Church is working on a three-year plan to plant a new church somewhere in Northwest Georgia. Associate pastor Jody Stancil will lead that congregation.
“We are excited for him and the future,” Hembree said. “To be a small church, yet to be involved in planting a church, is pretty exciting for us.”
Worship on Sunday is the most important thing we do, according to the pastor. Church leaders are organizing small groups in the community. Hembree describes these gatherings as “a safe place for people who don’t know Christ, a place for them to be introduced to the gospel and to Christians who love Jesus and are living for him.”
Counseling is another ministry to the community. The model that Hembree uses is called nouthetic, a Bible-based approach that works to alter more than behaviors.
“The Bible addresses the neediness of the human soul, and offers a cure for those needs. We redefine terminology and categories from the biblical perspective and help people understand how the gospel sets them free from whatever ails them, and how the grace of God can radically change them,” Hembree said.
The church also hosts a parent-run home-school cooperative with 17 families from various churches in Cherokee County.
Thoughts from the pastor:
"Our commitment is not to programs, nor is it to a particular social agenda or demographic group. Our commitment is to our covenant God, His covenant people, and to our community in and around Canton. We are gospel-ministry minded, and sincerely committed to growing together in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
