Grace Community Church, Plano Review

4501 Hedgcoxe Road
Plano, Tx. 75024
www.findgrace.org

Sunday, we went to Grace Community Church. We were running about 5 minutes late, but we rolled into one of the guest parking spaces. As soon as we walked into of of the church entrances, we were met by one of the greeters who apparently saw us park in one of the guest parking spaces. Because we had a little person, she asked if we'd like to visit the children's area. We really hadn't planned on taking Misses Jones to children's ministry, but we obliged anyway. We then met a really nice lady who got our little one signed in and gave us a tour of the children's area and informed us about the flow of traffic into and out of the area.

So about 5 minutes passed and I'm thinking to myself, "I'd really wish that they'd take us on a tour after service was over". I hope my impatience wasn't showing. We finally got back to the 18 to 24 month old class and the volunteer stuck her hands out at Misses Jones and to our surprise our little one went right to this lovely stranger. We felt like we were dreaming. But the true test would be when we actually walked out of the classroom door. We walked about 20 feet and heard a child cry out and we naturally figured that it was ours. We went into service and got there right on time to listen to the message.

The senior pastor was out of town on this Sunday and a really bubbly lady spoke on "Hearing the Voice of God". Not bad, but I'd really like to hear the senior pastor's style of delivering the Word. So on to the pro's and con's of our experience at Grace Community.

Pro's:

• The people were really nice.
  
• Multi-cultural. Not as multi-cultural as Covenant or Grace Outreach, but you don't have to look to far to your right or left to notice that everybody doesn't look the same.
• Missions is emphazised
• Contemporary worship style
• Wonderful children's ministry
• The availability of programs that you don't necessary find many other places (i.e. ministries for those dealing with mental illness)
• Close to home

Con's:

• Shorts and flip-flops on Sunday still hits me kinda weird
• Coffee and beverages other than water are allowed in the sanctuary
• Although the praise and worship music is nice, the congregants are still pretty stiff for the most part. I'm only basing this off of the song we sang before service was ended since we missed the beginning of service. If you are familiar with the song "Our God" by Chris Tomlin, you'll know it's by no means a hymn. At the same time, it's not completely dead either.

So we've decided to go back next Sunday. Oh yeah, I didn't finish though. After service we went to pick up Misses Jones from her class and was given a good report. She never cried the whole time she was there and she was the best little helper of the day. She helped the teacher clean up the Cheerios that fell on the floor. She is a good little cleaner upper, especially when you sing the...."Clean Up, Clean Up, Everybody Clean Up" song.

Anyway, our search may have ended, but only time will tell.