I Knew Grace Alive Was Going To Be Special
Hi, I'm Barry (the guy camped behind the computer at the back of the auditorium most Sundays), and I'm going to say this upfront: I have been part of a LOT of churches.
I'm currently working on the latter half of my fifth decade of regular church attendance (going back to about 9 months before I was born). Included in that mix are old established churches, brand new churches, churches on the rise, churches on the decline, churches that have been steadily faithful for years, churches that are past their glory days, a tiny church of about a dozen or less regular attenders, and megachurches with thousands of weekly attenders and multiple campuses.
Nevertheless, there is one thing I can say honestly about all the churches I have been part of: Grace Alive is different from every other one, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
For those who may not know, Grace Alive was mainly planted from out of a couple of churches in North Carolina—namely The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham and Mercy Hill Church in Greensboro. I had the privilege of being a member of each of them in succession. I was part of a team from the Summit that left for Greensboro to plant Mercy Hill, and five years later, I moved to Florida with the Grace Alive team, even though things were good, and I hadn't planned to leave. I had a relatively good job, close friends who were hard to leave behind, and a church I had been blessed to see grow from thirty-something to three thousand something. Things were happening, life was exciting in many ways, but I knew Grace Alive was going to be something special and unique, and I wanted to be a part of it.
Church planting is an unpredictable adventure. I hadn't planned to be behind that computer every week running the on-screen visuals, but I came seeking for God to use me wherever He saw fit, and it was something I had done before, so I got the job, and I enjoy doing it. It's just one small cog in an often not- so-well-oiled machine, from setting up and tearing down chairs at the YMCA and Oak Hill Elementary to crowding into a storefront on Edgewater Drive (that I will never forget as the place I got married to my beautiful wife Adriana) to the excitement of moving into our new permanent home about a year ago (in the midst of a global pandemic).
But those experiences are pretty typical of church planting (well, other than getting married and the pandemic; those have been unique so far). What makes Grace Alive different is that it is a church that has diversity and multicultural ministry baked into it from its inception, a church designed to not be entirely comfortable or comparable to any one cultural church setting, a church driven by the thought that the gospel is for all peoples so we should work to reach them with it. Other churches I have been a part of have moved in that direction, but Grace Alive took that challenge on from the start and did so in a diverse, constantly transitioning, crazy city like Orlando. In this place, a lot of very present real-world problems (like high levels of poverty and sex trafficking) are primarily overshadowed in the public eye by entertaining, clean-cut fantasy. It's a challenging, gritty calling that seems impossible but for the power of the Holy Spirit (probably because it is). It takes a lot of faith and prayer, a bit of work, and a persistent ongoing commitment to the gospel.
And I'm the guy in the back of the room hitting an arrow key or a mouse to make sure you remember the lyrics to "O Come to the Altar." Why do that most Sundays for nearly four years now?
Am I a tech-head who loves being on a computer all the time? Well, actually, no. I'm not all that techy, and I am on a computer most of the time at my day job anyway.
Do I want to avoid all the crowds and be by myself? Quite the contrary. I miss being among the congregation many Sundays, and frankly, I can be kind of an attention hog. Being behind the scenes is not often my favorite place to be.
But I'm behind the scenes because I believe it when we say at Grace Alive, "The gospel changes everything." And I know how the gospel has impacted me through Biblically faithful sermons and songs. No, tech is not my main thing, but clear gospel communication is a big deal. And if one of Cam's sermon points hits home because it's visible behind him or if a song lyric conveys a gospel truth as it's read aloud in song, those little key pushes could be communicating that gospel to someone. It's not impressive or unique. Just about anybody could do, and if it ever bears any eternal fruit, I likely won't know it until eternity. It's not anything exceptional, but neither is cleaning up Goldfish in Grace Alive Kids or praying with someone after a service. But through the gospel, God takes these ordinary things and makes them extraordinary, and I have seen lives and families absolutely saved by the power of the gospel.
Who wouldn't want to be a part of that?