Our History: Established 1969

In the beginning...

Grace Covenant Church grew out of a home Bible study that started in 1968 with a small group of people. They were drawn together by a desire for fellowship and hunger for the Word of God. The founding members selected our name as a tribute to the Bible study that started it all: a study of the book of Galatians, with its focus on God's covenant of grace. (We are not a "covenant" church.)

After occupying a car dealership for several years, the church moved to its new home—a former manufacturing facility—in 1977, located in the Arboretum area of Austin. Our new campus afforded opportunity for expanded ministry.

Today...

More than 1,500 people attend the church each weekend. We offer three contemporary worship services (9:00 am, 10:30 am & Noon) and a variety of Children's and Adult Education classes on Sunday mornings. Our Student Ministry serves students from more than 20 neighboring schools. Throughout the week, people of Grace gather as small groups in homes, restaurants and offices. Some gather to discuss Sunday's sermon; others are drawn together by a common interest. In 2007, we introduced Celebrate Recovery, an internationally renowned, Christ-centered 12-step program to help people find freedom from their "hurts, habits and hang-ups."

Church planting has also been a distinctive of Grace Covenant Church over the years. Until God provided a permanent home, church planting was the only way to deal with continued growth! Westlake Bible Church and Hill Country Bible Church are by-products of Grace Covenant Church. Our missionary outreach has been a developing ministry that has experienced tremendous growth over the years. Grace’s direct outreach now includes the countries of Mexico, Haiti, and East Asia, and most recently, East Austin.

Wisdom, Passion, Humility

In 2002, Grace Covenant adopted the vision statement, “At Grace Covenant Church, we desire to be a courageous church, where every believer is a minister, equipped and united, to impact people for Christ, for the glory of God.” Ephesians 4:11-12 reminds us of our primary goal as a church—to produce “mature believers” who demonstrate wisdom, passion and humility. Our church model is one of an equipping church where the Pastors serve as the equippers of the Church for works of ministry. The goal of all our ministries is to ultimately produce mature believers who are tenderhearted followers of Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit. Our desire is that every person of Grace will think biblically, relate compassionately, and invest eternally, to impact people for the glory of God.

In 2005, Grace Covenant faced the challenges of continued growth by adopting a new master plan for our campus and embarking on a multi-phase capital stewardship campaign called Grace Transforms. Phase One calls for relocating our nursery and preschool rooms from the Children's Building (which had itself been transformed from a manufacturing plant, some 25 years earlier) into renovated space in our Cornerstone Building. In Fall 2007, construction began on a new 1,850-seat Worship Center, built largely over the footprint of that original Children's Building. It is tentatively scheduled for completion in Spring 2009.