(as published on Saturday, Feb. 17,2007 in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazzette)
Church seeks out ‘the everyday person'
Grace Connection
9110 I- 30 Frontage Road
Little Rock
(501)568-7711
WORSHIP 9:30 a.m. Sunday
PASTORS Tommy Thomason
ATTENDANCE 100
WEB SITE: www.graceconnectionchurch.com
DENOMINATION Nondenominational
MISSION STATEMENT “Our mission is simply to connect people to God's grace,” said Tommy T homason , one of the church's two pastors.
HISTORY The church was started in 2002 by a group of people who had left a Southern Baptist church and met for a while in a home. Tommy T homason had been an associate pastor at the previous church, and as the group decided they wanted to stay together, they prayed about whether to start a new church.
“The distinct message we got was, if you're going to start one, be different,” Thomason said. Their unique ministry is that “we really go after the everyday person,” he said. “The church is for everybody. We don't do fakes, we don't do hypocrites.”
The church met for several years in an industrial building along Interstate 30 in Little Rock . In May the church bought the former Waterworld marine products property farther west facing Interstate 30 and took several months to renovate it. The building has been broken into 14 times, “to the point that it's amusing,” Thomason said.
ABOUT THE PASTORS Thomason and co-pastor Mike Montgomery have day jobs, and neither takes a salary from the church, which allows offerings to go toward ministry, said Thomason, citing a study that found that in churches of 100 members or fewer, about 70 percent of offerings go to supporting the pastor. They take turns preaching.
“We don't have the senior pastor that sits atop the totem pole and calls all the shots,” Thomason said. The church relies on “a plurality of elders” for governance, and all major decisions go before the body, he said. “We feel like there's security there. One man can go bad.”
Thomason is a regional manager for Splash Superpools and travels about 60 days of the year. He and his wife, Jamie, have two children.
Mike Montgomery owns Office Furniture Service. He and his wife, Monica, have three children and one grandchild.
PROGRAMS The church's ministry to the race car community has earned it the nickname “the racing church.” Thomason holds prayer circles at the I-30 Speedway near Bryant, and members also have a presence at other racing venues, including a drag racing strip in Centerville .
The heartbeat of the church is life groups, small groups which meet either weekly or biweekly. Some are organized by age, some by geography; one is a women-only group, with some members who attend other churches. Youths meet every other Wednesday night.
The meetings are partly social gatherings and partly spiritual discussions, and they have been a point of entry into the church for some members. “It's a whole lot easier to invite
somebody over to your house” than to invite them to church, Thomason said. “You can invite ‘em in the front door, or you can sneak ‘em in the back door.”
Worship is upbeat and informal and begins with a praise-and-worship band. The pastors' messages on Sunday are based on “life application teaching,” Thomason said. “You're not going to get a history lesson. You'll walk out of here with something you can apply to your life that day.”
Thomason stresses that the church family has fun. “This sterile life that most people think Christians should lead – I don't know where they got that. God wants us to enjoy life.”
WHAT'S NEW The building was briefly owned by people who installed a bar and café area, intending to open a Latin disco. Thomason plans to develop a coffee bar, to add wireless Internet access and to open a coffeehouse for young people on Friday and Saturday nights. “As cheesy as it sounds, we want to be someplace that's cool for the kids to hang out,” he said.
The webs site, which has much information about the church, recently added downloads of the weekly message, MP3 recordings and podcasting should start within a few weeks, Thomason said.
The church also plans to start a mechanics' ministry to offer oil changes and minor car repairs for single mothers and others who need such help.
EVENTS The church will hold its fourth annual Race Day Dedication at 3:30 p.m. March 4 to pray for race cars and their drivers and crew. “We pray for safety, not for victory,” Thomason said. The day includes a car show, trophies, food and music.
To strengthen families, the church holds a weekend marriage retreat in Northwest Arkansas every February. This year about 15 to 20 couples participated. “It's two days of working on marriages. You get away from the kids and TVs,” Thomason said, adding that a number of people have improved rocky marriages since coming to the church.
Every summer, members take a church-wide weekend camping trip to Greers Ferry.
NEEDS Instead of listing needs, Thomason prefers to focus on the big picture. “If the body and everyone they touch could draw closer to the Lord, everything would take are of itself,” he said. “I'd much rather the Lord lead them to do something than me to tell them what to do, because I mess up. Our job as pastors is to stay out of God's way.”
-Laura Lynn Brown
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