Grace To Grow! - History of Grace Presbyterian Church of St. Charles County

When Dr. Wilson Benton came to the Kirk of the Hills Presbyterian Church of St. Louis, MO in 1985 as Senior Pastor, he was very concerned about church planting. In the mid 1990's, Dr. Benton and the Kirk of the Hills church decided to look for a pastor that was interested in being part of a new church plant. Two earlier attempts to plant a PCA church in St. Charles county had failed . In 1998 , they called Phillip Haltom, a seminary student and an experienced 20 year veteran of Campus Crusade for Christ, to be an Assistant Pastor of Church Planting for the purpose of planting a PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) church in St. Charles County, Missouri.

During 1998 and early 1999, Phil established home bible study groups throughout the county with the assistance of Kirk of the Hills members residing in the county, as well as some seminary students. Everyone would attend the Kirk or other churches on Sunday Mornings and bible studies in homes at night.

After one year of the weekly meetings, everyone came together as a whole for their first worship service at St. Charles Community College on May 29, 1999. This worship service was the first time the home groups gathered together for corporate worship. A placed was needed for regular church services. A new Middle School had just opened in the area and had some space that the new church could meet in. The principle was a prior member of the the Kirk of the Hills and was very open to having the new church meet at the school. At this time the church hired it's first employee, Gary Campbell, a very experienced individual to lead the music ministry. Gary was on leave from a church in Florida to study pipe organ at Lindenwood University in St. Charles. He along with Pastor Phil, established a thematic worship service emphasizing blended music that has become the hallmark of the services.

Phil was ordained in August after completing his course work at Covenant Seminary and fulfilling the PCA ordination requirements. The first Grace Presbyterian Church of St. Charles County worship service was held on Sunday, September 5, 1999 at Seager Middle School. The church retained mission status in the Presbytery until September 30, 2001 when it was particularized (set apart as a separate church) during a Sunday evening worship service when two elders were installed and a Session was formed. One hundred and fifty-six persons were deemed charter members of the church. Grace Presbyterian Church of St. Charles County was incorporated as a 501 C3 corporation on July 5, 2001
Now that the new church had a place to hold worship services, another need was office space. A house that was available for lease was located only a 1/2 block from the school. It was found to be suitable and the rent was reasonable. Modifications were made by volunteers from the church and this house served as the church office for 3 years.

Originally the church was allowed to store the materials for worship, including a piano, at the school. But eventually the school asked the church to move the materials off site. Portable wooden boxes on wheels were built to hold the materials. Two trailers were obtained to store and transport the boxes. A team of men with trucks plus set up crews made the portable church work each Sunday.
Pastor Phil set the vision for Grace Presbyterian Church of St. Charles County at the Presbytery meeting to be a church that would plant many other churches and be a mother church. We would be the tree and they would be the branches. He told the Presbytery that our first plants would be Old St. Charles and Wentzville.

Search for land to locate a worship center presented some tough challenges. Long before Grace was formed, Dr. Benton asked Jerry Leigh, a Kirk member and a real estate broker to start looking for a site to build the new church. The general area that Jerry was asked to look was bounded on the west of Missouri Highway 94 and north of U.S. Highway 40. When Jerry began to seriously look for a location, he asked Pastor Haltom where he should look. He said, "We should build at the epicenter". When asked where the Epicenter was he said, "Oh, I will know when I'm there."

Several times Jerry would find a piece of property that seemed right, but Pastor Haltom would say, "No, this doesn't look and feel right. It is not the Epicenter". The first site came from a chance sighting of a for sale sign by one of the elders. Pastor Phil felt it was the epicenter. This 12.6 acre property, a former hog farm, was purchased on June 20, 2001 for the site of the church building.

A building committee was formed from volunteers in the congregation. This committee met Sundays for four years -Praying, planning, dreaming, and praying some more for the future of this church and its facilities. Not long after closing on the property and while plans were being drawn up for the new building, a friend of Jerry's dropped by the church office and told the secretary that the selected site - the hog farm - was going to be left stranded from Highway N in the relocation of the Highway a few years in the future. In November, 2002, an even exchange was forged for another site, farm land, less than a mile west of this original piece of land, at no additional cost even though the land was worth four times the exchange value. How did this happen. An answer to many prayers.
As plans for a building on this new site were drawn up and efforts toward building moved forward, the civil engineer for the project advised that the site should be raised 11 feet in some areas to ensure that the new buildings would be out of the flood plain of Dardeenne Creek, that flowed just south of the property. There were no funds for dirt so the church put up a sign that said free fill dirt wanted. It came and it came and it came. In all 10,000 truck loads were added, competing the fill area for both the first and second phase of construction.

During the spring of 2003 the Session called its second full time employee - Andy Moehn to be Assistant Pastor for congregational care and discipleship. He was ordained on November 16 at a special worship service held at Seager School. In the fall of 2003 Pastor Phil Haltom left to pursue a call to minister in Chicago. IL.

Grace began its missionary program with two foreign missionaries in 2004

The elders of this church were real elders. They cared for the church, its people, and for the Christian nurture of the congregation. These men of strong character met with only the help of supply ministers from the seminary and the Kirk of the Hills church. These men carried the load of this church for two years during the time between pastors. Never once did they say that we should not proceed to build. They kept the vision alive, they fought, prayed, fasted and worked hard. Again the Lord provided His answer. The church called Dan Perrin, a pastor with 27 years of experience and a vision to see this church plant completed, to become the new pastor in January 2005.

Building began in earnest with construction of the new church in early 2005. Much of the original farm site had to be torn down for the new building. All of this tear down work was done by volunteer members. The hay barn, the granary, both farm houses (one of which would be remodeled to become the office), the garage (to become the youth annex), and two large silos were left standing.
After all buildings and debris were removed the site was leveled in preparation for construction.
The foundation was laid.

Erection of the steel for the new multi-purpose worship center was started.
After the steel was erected, siding and drywall installed, much of the later work of completing the interior was completed by a lot of sweat equity. Church members spent many evenings and most Saturdays, installing windows, plumbing fixtures, doors, and painting to help reduce the cost of construction.
Jerry Leigh painting the ceiling.
Women of the church painting the windows.
Men of the church installing the windows.
Jerry & his trademark "Aussie" hat!!
While the basic structure was being erected, the members spent many hours converting one of the farm houses on the property into the church office. A lot of years of rot and termites had to be dealt with to remodel this house into an office. The church opened its new office on its own property in March 2005.
The church was given access to a large office building that was to be torn down. This supplied many needed construction materials, such as plumbing and electrical fixtures and doors. This saved over $800,000 in building costs and also provided a 1 million kilowatt electric generator for power to be used in Red Cross emergencies.
After construction was mostly finished, Grace Presbyterian Church of St. Charles held its first worship service in its new multi-purpose building on Mothers Day 2006.
The farm garage had been remodeled to become the youth garage.
Barn, Silos, granary, and youth garage.
Barns, granary, and silos.
Church, Barn, silos, and granary.
After the building plans had been drawn up, but before construction began, six large banners were designed to hang in the sanctuary. Several women of the church worked many years to complete them. Each letter and graphic had to be hand stitched to the banner fabric. These banners trace the story of Salvation from Genesis to Revelation. The completed banners were hung on the front wall of the sanctuary in April 2009 and dedicated in the May 3, 2009 worship services. The banners below are in the order that you would see them (left to right).
During the summer and fall of 2009, church members volunteered many hours in the evenings and Saturdays to convert the hay barn loft floor into a large room that can be used for many events. The lower level of the barn was converted into three classrooms by partitioning and installing a dropped ceiling and heating and air conditioning. Also the remaining two story farm house was remodeled to provide temporary housing for visiting missionaries or seminary students.
The first major event held in barn was a 11:00 PM Christmas Eve Service in the barn loft. A barn dance is scheduled for April 24, 2010. The youth used the barn loft for a indoor recreation area during the winter months of 2010.

GRACE TODAY
Grace church has doubled its attendance since its beginning year and increased giving by 55% in the last four years.

Grace has six missionaries throughout the world.

Grace is participating in an ongoing new church plant in Wentzville.

Grace has had to expand to two services to meet its growth.

Grace members are working with a church plant in old town St. Charles.

Grace has a full time staff of two ordained pastors and one soon to be ordained (Youth Ministries Director), a full time secretary, two part time staff, and volunteer staff.

6308 Highway N
Saint Charles, MO 63304
Office: 636-926-2955

Schedule
Worship Services 8:30 AM & 11:00 AM
Sunday School 9:45 AM
Senior High Youth 6:00-8:00 PM Sunday
Middle School Youth 6:00-8:00 PM

Grace Family Connection

Wednesday 5:15-6:00 PM
Brown Bag Meal except hot meal on 1st Wednesdays

Adult Choir Practice 6:15-7:30 PM Wednesday

Aerial view of Grace Presbyterian Church of St. Charles County