Jorge Acevedo leads a rapidly growing church in the most populated area between Tampa and Miami, Florida. Grace Church is largely made up of working class people and operates on the smallest per person expenditure in all of American Methodism.

Grace Church defines their vision in part as a partnership with God to be “Jesus with skin on” to others. They view the work of God as a “joint venture” where we follow God and work with God to help people experience God’s grace and salvation.

“The most startling observation for us has been that most of our evangelism is happening in non-traditional ministry venues. For more than eleven years, our Friday night Celebrate Recovery has been the evangelism engine for Grace Church. This 12-step, Christ-centered recovery ministry has been anointed to reach those wanting freedom and deliverance from life’s hurts, habits and hang-ups. On any given week, we will have about 2,000-2,100 people in worship on Sunday morning and 400-500 in worship at three Celebrate Recovery events.

Significantly more first time commitments to Jesus are made at Celebrate Recovery. This has been humbling for me as one charged with leading Sunday worship. As of late, a second evangelism venue has arisen at our Grace Community Center. This is where the compassion of Jesus meets the evangelism of Jesus. In giving away bags of food and offering prayer, evangelism “magic” happens. On any given week, we will see three to 10 people accept Christ at the Grace Community Center.” – Jorge Acevedo

Every Sunday, Seedbed will feature stories of how God is working through the people that make up the Church. We want to hear how God is working in your church. If you think your church should be featured in Seedbed’s Sunday series then email us at seedbed@asburyseminary.edu