Grace Unscripted

“God loved me so deeply to save my depraved heart unconditionally. I had a good sense of hope that it was going to be ok. Sometimes we’ll take the biological part really far or the spiritual part really far. Nate was really good about reminding me that while you are learning all these things that are going on with you hormonally, remember the spiritual side. As a person you are spiritual, emotiona...

“I don’t want a relationship with God just because I don’t want to go to hell. I want a relationship with God because I want to know this man. He is my father. I love him so much. He loves me so much. It fills all those voids and answers all those questions that people, especially women and girls, ask, ‘Am I worthy? Am I loved? Why did this happen to me?’ God fills all those voids.” -Ari Smith Thi...

“When I first came to Grace, I said and I meant, ‘I hate people.’ And my shift is so opposite of that now; it is an absolute upside down kingdom. It’s an answer to prayer because I literally prayed for months for God to show me people the way He saw them, not the way I saw them. I know my heart and where it leads me. So it has been abandon. God, you tell me where I am going, and I am r...

“For the very first time in my life I saw God not as the wagging finger or the fist about to pound me. I saw the hand reaching out to rescue me and save me. Still to this day when someone asks, ‘What is God to you?’ I say, ‘He is the God of the outstretched hand.’ He was reaching down because he was choosing me. I felt chosen. I felt loved. And that was life change for me.” – Jason Catlett T...

“I am super excited for Feed My Starving Children this year. I think it’s ironic that I started volunteering with that in the middle of struggling with anorexia. Since then I’ve been part of it every year. One year, our slogan on the t-shirt was ‘Hope Starts With Food.’ It just hit me- that’s my story. Hope starts with being physically fed, and as I was physically fed I became spiritually fed as w...

“I’m a product of everything this organization has done. I’m convinced that God has used all these ministries that I’ve been a part of, both as a student and as a youth pastor. Now it’s incredible to see the impact that these ministries have, to get to lead the organization, and help churches see the value in what this adds. I love being able to put wind into people’s sails and help them reach the...

“I have the abilities God has given me… I can read the bible. I can memorize. I can study. I can pray. I can love. I can reach out to people and not always wait for them to reach out to me. It is common in the disability community to collapse inward and to not reach out because they might not reach back. I never got that memo.” -Shanda Gobeli

“It’s not hard to have a day camp. To have a quality day camp centered on the gospel – that’s hard. And it’s only able to be centered on the gospel if you have enough volunteers to take care of the absolute essentials and even more to double down on the gospel. The thing I’m most excited about is how we can use sports with kids, high school, and college to develop leaders who then train...

“When we found ourselves desperate to save our family, it just felt natural to turn to church. We needed community, we didn’t know that then, but I know now that’s what we needed. Community was everything we didn’t know we needed when our marriage was all but dead. And it became everything that we needed to be who we are today.” -Leigh Ann Hradil

“Success really drove me. Then in my mid- 30’s I came to Grace and I started committing my life to Christ and I thought, ‘Huh, which master am I going to serve?’… My life priorities were shifting because I knew the Lord, but I came to love him and be defined by Him.” -Ray Dunkle

What is the God Dream of Sports Ministry at Grace? Mark Stellar, the new Director of Sports Ministry Integration at Grace, tells us his own story and within it we see why and how connecting with our community through sports has an eternal impact.

Ministry bombs. Moving mid-pandemic. Marriage crisis. Miraculous redemption. “Now the biggest question that I’ve been asking God is, ‘How are we going to use this story?’” More hard questions and more giggles as we conclude episode 2 of 2 with Bethany Miller.

“In my junior year, I experienced my first bout of very serious depression… I can recall very clearly moments lying in bed as an angsty teenager going, ‘God I gave my life to you and this is what you gave me?’” -Bethany Miller

“I started to fall apart in middle school… I realized nobody actually cares. If this is what Christians are like I don’t want any part of it. My biggest fear is that happens to kids today in our own ministry.” -John Gressock This week’s Unscripted conversation goes deep into the story of Grace’s Student Ministries Middle School Pastor, John. Hear how the desperation and loneliness he experienced a...

“I think I’m going to ask my neighbor if she wants to follow Jesus tomorrow.” -Sunni Gressock If you want to hear the story of a woman who relentlessly pursues people for Jesus and be inspired to live boldly, too – don’t miss today’s Unscripted conversation!

“My brother-in-law just kept inviting me to go to church… I went in looking for anything and everything I could find wrong so that I would never ever go back to church… I realized how hard of a wall I had built up and God busted through that thing and I allowed myself to stand up and accept prayer… I was so happy that I finally saw Him again and I couldn’t stop crying… That was the moment where my...

“After the funeral at the church we were married in… I stood at the same spot that we said our vows. I remember telling God,through a lot of tears, ‘I get it. Your Fathership trumps my husbandship… She is yours first and like her dad gave her away here, I am giving her away to you.’” -Paul Basone Here is the Unscripted story of Paul’s journey through the privilege and pain of losing his wife and h...

“When you take a minute to look back at God’s faithfulness, I think that is where rest comes, and confidence comes, and peace in the Lord’s plan for your life.” – Zoe Jamison   Between grief and healing, anger and joy, singleness and marriage, Zoe shares the highs and lows in her story on the next episode of grace unscripted.