Church has come far since divine mowing

By The Daily Progress Staff

Published: April 11, 2008

They’re painting and hammering, priming and coating, from the sanctuary to the classrooms to basement fellowship hall to better suit their mission.
After seven years of meeting in borrowed and rented spaces, the 150 members of Grace Baptist Church are moving into their new Proffit Road-area digs, replete with steeple and baptistery. That’s quite an accomplishment, considering the church began seven years ago in a one-on-one talk between God and Pastor Johnny Hartless as the pastor mowed his grass.
“I was mowing the lawn and praying about churches and looking for guidance and the Lord called me,” Pastor Johnny explains, walking through the church sanctuary in the throes of serious, near-to-the-bone remodeling. “The Lord had called me a long time before that, but I sort of put it off, serving as a deacon and a Sunday school teacher. This time I realized it was time.”
He was right. Knocking on doors and talking to people, Pastor Johnny and about five parishioners met shortly thereafter for the first time. It wasn’t until he leaped into faith that the church took off, however. Using his retirement money and cash from selling his consulting business, he helped grow the church.
“I was trying to pastor a church and continue my business and it just wasn’t growing the church. The Lord inspired me to close the business down and take the money I had for retirement and use it for the church,” he says. “The Lord made it clear that I was to trust him and that’s what I’m doing. It’s been a work of faith.”
Perhaps through its adversity, the community of Grace Baptist Church has been knitted tight. In their seven years together, the members met in a basement, a local hotel and Woodbrook Shopping Center. They’ve held summer baptisms in the Middle River and used a portable baptistery.
The congregation has worked hard to raise the money to buy its new church, the former home of New Hope Community Church on Pritchett Lane. Now it’s working hard to put the building right, laying new carpeting, painting and sprucing and remodeling.
“God calls the church a body and, like the body, it’s made up of different parts, each with a specialty,” Pastor Johnny says. “We have electricians and carpenters and painters and landscapers and people of different abilities and paths and each has helped in his own way. It’s a true community effort.”
The church plans to hold its first service in the new building Sunday and a grand opening April 27.
“It’s been a lot of work to get it done, but I think we’ll be ready,” he says with pride. “You know, these have been the best years of my life. Nothing is better than being exactly where the Lord would have you be, right in the center of His will.”