Loans totaling $9 million have been approved to three churches in the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches by the Grace Brethren Investment Foundation (GBIF).
“This investment will be returned in the value of changed lives,” says Ken Seyfert, executive director of the GBIF.
The three churches include:
- the Seal Beach, Calif. Grace Brethren Church, who are purchasing a property that is immediately adjacent to existing church facilities. The property will provide a buffer between their existing fellowship hall (that is used for worship) and the nearest neighbor. It will allow the congregation, led by Pastor Don Shoemaker, to remain in their current location and be effective in ministry there.
- the Gateway Grace Community Church, Parkesburg, Pa., who is constructing a new 20,000 square foot multi-purpose worship facility on five acres. It will allow the growing congregation, which is pastored by Dan O’Deens, to move from a cramped, rented facility where more than 400 people worship in two services, to a building of their own.
- the Grace Brethren Church of Wooster, Ohio, who is constructing a new Student Ministry Center. The 30,696 square-foot facility will include a student worship center, three classrooms, two school offices, and a connection café. This will enable the church to expand their ministry to junior and senior high students, as well as providing renovated space for the extensive children’s ministry. It will also provide space to meet the needs of seniors during the week. Bob Fetterhoff is the pastor at Wooster.
The Grace Brethren Investment Foundation, located in Winona Lake, Ind., provides respectable returns on investment accounts and competitive mortgage financing so that congregations in the Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches can purchase property and construct or expand facilities to minister more effectively to local communities and reach the world with the life-changing Gospel of Jesus Christ.