Vision
We’re convinced that Jesus is both the source and goal of life. He wants us to do more than just survive this life He has created for us; He wants us to thrive—to be fully alive, as He is.
One time Jesus used the picture of a vineyard to illustrate the kind of thriving life He wants for us.
• He invites us first to abide in Him, like a branch vitally connected to the life of the vine (John 15:4 
).
• Then He calls us to love each other with that same sense of vibrant, dependent connection (John 15:12 ).
• Finally, He causes our lives to produce lasting fruit, which is the joyful purpose of the vine (John 15:16 ).
Connect vitally to Jesus. Connect with love to each other. Connect with joy to our purpose.
This is life worth living!
And that’s why we’re passionate about connecting people to Jesus, to each other, and to their purpose in life.
Bruce Barlow
Lead Pastor
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Bruce served as Associate Pastor at the Martinsburg, Pennsylvania, Grace Brethren Church before coming to Grace College to work in the Dean’s Office. He has been pouring his life into the people of this church for several decades, coming officially on staff in 1992.
Kip Cone
Proclamation Pastor
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Kip and Mary met at Grace College and subsequently served as church-planters for a decade in Berlin, Germany.
Dave Rank
Worship Pastor
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Dave has been involved in both youth and music ministries for many years, first in Myerstown, Pennsylvania, and more recently here in Winona Lake. In addition to serving as Pastor of Worship, Dave gives direction to one of the country’s best youth conferences—Momentum, which is put on by CE National.
Tim Wright
Youth Pastor
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Tim and Brandi are Winona Lake natives. Tim has served as Youth Pastor at Winona Lake Grace Brethren Church since graduation from Grace College.
Dr. Tom Julien
Equipping Pastor
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
After many years of ministry in France, Tom served as Director of Grace Brethren International Missions. Antioch Revisited, a book Tom wrote about the relationship between the local church and missions, is having a profound impact on churches and missions organizations.
Jay Bell
Missions and Evangelism Pastor
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Jay served on the pastoral staff of the Long Beach Grace Brethren Church before the Bells made a “cross-cultural leap” from L.A. to Winona Lake in 1991 to go on staff with Grace Brethren International Missions. Jay currently serves as the Director of Internationals-USA.
Vicky Scantlen
Church Administrator
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Vicky has been on staff at WLGBC since 1991. She has served as Director of Children’s Ministries, Assistant to the Senior Pastor and became Church Administrator in 2006. She and her husband Ron live in a 150-year-old victorian “purple” home in Milford, IN. They have three grown children and three wonderful grandchildren.
Becky Wilson
Children’s Ministry Coordinator
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Nick Deck
Jr. High & College-Age Coordinator
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Aaron Scantlen
Comminications Coordinator
Mission & Evangelism Team Assist
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Sue Lehman
Finance
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Bonnie Nieter
Office Reception & Bulletin
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Cindy Yocum
Secretary to Music & Youth Ministries
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
How we do Church
How we do church
1. Jesus: Jesus is the head of His body, the church. His glorious goal is to fill His church with the fullness of His infinite and eternal life. Connecting people vitally to Jesus is what the church is all about.
“And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.”
Ephesians 1:22-23
2. Overseers: Jesus has gifted His church with people who serve the church with a diversity of abilities and responsibilities. This includes overseers. Overseers are spiritually mature men who serve the church by taking on the responsibility of giving spiritual direction to the church. WLGBC is governed by a Board of Overseers.
“Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock.”
1 Peter 5:2-3
3. Pastoral Leadership Team: In Ephesians 4 , Paul gives us a listing of different “giftings” which are needed to see the church become mature in Christ and equipped for ministry. WLGBC has a team of six elected pastors, both paid and voluntary, who reflect these diverse giftings. The goal of these pastors is to prepare all of God’s people for works of service.
“It was Jesus who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
Ephesians 4:11-13
4. People: The church is people—each and every one with his or her own set of abilities. There are countless opportunities for service within and through the church. The church thrives as each person uses his or her gift to strengthen and grow the body.
“The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ”
1 Corinthians 12:4-6 , 12
“From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
Ephesians 4:16
A Brief History of Winona Lake (IN) Grace Brethren Church
Shortly after Grace Theological Seminary moved to Winona Lake in the late 1930s and the national organization activity of the Fellowship was beginning to center in Winona Lake, a small group began meeting in each other’s homes for Wednesday evening prayer.
The decision to move forward and form a church was made June 23, 1943, at a meeting at Don Bartlett’s home on Seventh Street. Temporary officers elected were Leo Polman, chairman; Isobel Fraser, secretary; and Marvin Goodman, treasurer.
The first Sunday service was held in the Free Methodist Headquarters building (now Mount Memorial Hall) on September 5, 1943. Charter membership eventually closed with 53 people on the list.
Grace Seminary faculty member Dr. Homer Kent, Sr. became the first pastor in 1946 and the church’s first constitution was completed three years later. Herman Koontz was installed as the church’s first full-time pastor in September of 1949, and two years later the group moved its Sunday meetings to the new seminary building, now McClain Hall.
Don Ogden was engaged as the church’s first music and youth director in 1953, and the first Vacation Bible School was held in 1954. That same year, property was purchased on the corner of 13th street and King’s Highway, for the eventual construction of a facility specifically for the church.
A branch church was begun in the Herscher Addition in 1956, and that congregation is now Community Grace Brethren Church of Warsaw, Indiana.
Richard DeArmey was installed as pastor in 1957. That year the church’s missions budget was about $5,000 and Sunday attendances averaged slightly more than 200 people.
Charles Ashman came as pastor in 1962, and six years later, in April of 1968, ground was broken on King’s Highway for the first phase of the church’s current facility. Ed Lewis became WLGBC’s first assistant pastor in 1969.
The new building was first occupied on December 11, 1969, with a threefold communion service attended by 225 people. Max Fluke was chairman of the building committee. At the formal dedication in January, 1970, the main speaker was Pastor Richard DeArmey.
In 1978 “Grace” was added to the name, now making it Winona Lake Grace Brethren Church. The facilities and property of the Winona School of Photography (now the Youth Center) were purchased in 1983.
John Teevan succeeded Charles Ashman as pastor in 1989, and attendances were then running more than 500 with a missions budget of more than $135,000.
In the summer of 2006, Pastor John Teevan accepted a position with Grace College and Seminary and the church restructured into a team leadership concept with associate pastor Bruce Barlow becoming the lead pastor. In addition to Barlow, the pastoral leadership team includes Kip Cone (proclamation), Dave Rank (music and worship), Tim Wright (youth), Tom Julien (equipping), Jay Bell (missions and evangelism) and Tom Miller (seniors).
“Founded on the Faith, Focused on the Future,” the slogan the church used during its 50-year anniversary celebration in 1993, still characterizes the warm, outreaching, equipping family of believers that is Winona Lake Grace Brethren Church.
Winona Lake Grace Brethren Church Statement of Faith
1. THE BIBLE. The Word of God, the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, verbally inspired in all parts, and therefore wholly without error as originally given of God (2 Tim. 3:16 ; 2 Peter 1:21 ).
2. THE ONE TRUE GOD. Existing eternally as three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (Luke 3:22 ; Matthew 28:19 ; 2 Cor. 13:14 ).
3. THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. His preexistence and deity (John 1:13 ), incarnation by virgin birth (John 1:14 ; Matthew 1:18-23 ), sinless life (Heb. 4:15 ), substitutionary death (2 Cor. 5:21 ), bodily resurrection (Luke 24:36-43 ), ascension into heaven and present ministry (Heb. 4:14-16 ), and coming again (Acts 1:11 ).
4. THE HOLY SPIRIT. His personality (John 16:7-15 ), and deity (Acts 5:3-4 ), and His work in each believer: baptism and indwelling at the moment of regeneration (1 Cor. 12:13 ; Rom. 8:9 ), and filling (Eph. 5:18 ) to empower for Christian life and service (Eph. 3:16 ; Acts 1:8 ; Gal. 5:22-23 ).
5. MAN. His direct creation in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-28 ), his subsequent fall into sin resulting in spiritual death (Gen. 3:124 ; Rom. 5:12 ), and the necessity of the new birth for his salvation (John 3:35 ).
6. SALVATION. A complete and eternal salvation by God's grace alone received as the gift of God through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His finished work (Eph. 2:89 ; Titus 3:57 ; 1 Peter 1:18-19 ).
7. THE CHURCH. One true church, the body and the bride of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23 ; 5:25-32), composed of all true believers of the present age (1 Cor. 12:1213 ); and the organization of its members in local churches for worship, for edification of believers, and for worldwide gospel witness, each local church being autonomous but cooperating in fellowship and work (Eph. 4:11-16 ).
8. CHRISTIAN LIFE. A life of righteousness, good works and separation unto God from the evil ways of the world (Rom. 12:12 ), manifested by speaking the truth (James 5:12 ), maintaining the sanctity of the home (Eph. 5:22-6:4 ), settling differences between Christians in accordance with the Word of God (1 Cor. 6:18 ), not engaging in carnal strife but showing a Christlike attitude toward all men (Rom. 12:17-21 ), exhibiting the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23 ), and maintaining a life of prayer (Eph. 6:18 ; Phil. 4:6 ), including the privilege, when sick, of calling for the elders of the church to pray and to anoint with oil in the name of the Lord (James 5:13-18 ).
9. ORDINANCES. The Christians should observe the ordinances of our Lord Jesus Christ which are (1) baptism of believers by triune immersion (Matt. 28:19 ) and (2) the threefold communion service, consisting of the washing of the saints' feet (John 13:1-17 ), the Lord's Supper (1 Cor. 11:20-22 , 33-34; Jude 12 ), and the communion of the bread and the cup (1 Cor. 11:23-26 ).
10. SATAN. His existence and personality as the great adversary of God and His people (Rev. 12:1-10 ), his judgment (John 12:31 ), and final doom (Rev. 20:10 ).
11. SECOND COMING. The personal, visible, and imminent return of Christ to remove His church from the earth (1 Thess. 4:16-17) before the tribulation (1 Thess. 1:10; Rev. 3:10 ), and afterward to descend with the Church to establish His millennial kingdom upon the earth (Rev. 19:11-20:6 ).
12. FUTURE LIFE. The conscious existence of the dead (Phil. 1:21-23 ; Luke 16:19-31 ), the resurrection of the body (John 5:28-29 ), the judgment and reward of believers (Rom. 14:10-12 ; 2 Cor. 5:10 ), the judgment and condemnation of unbelievers (Rev. 20:11-15 ), the eternal life of the saved (John 3:16 ), and the eternal punishment of the lost (Matt. 25:46 ; Rev. 20:15 ).
Service Times
Sunday
8:45 a.m. - First Worship Service
Nursery - infants & toddlers
Early childhood classes - 2-year-olds - Kindergarten
Children’s Church - 1st grade - 6th grade
10:00 a.m. - Adult Bible Fellowship (ABF) and Training Hour
Nursery - infants & toddlers
Kids Connection Sunday School Classes
Youth Sunday School
11:15 a.m. - Second Worship Service
Nursery - infants & toddlers
Early childhood classes - 2-year-olds - Kindergarten
Children’s Church - 1st grade - 6th grade
11:15 a.m. - Third Worship Service - The Living Room
6:00 p.m. - Various activities
8:00 p.m. - College Group
Wednesdays
6:45 pm - AWANA & Epic Wednesdays (Sr. High & Jr. High)
7:00 pm - Prayer Meeting
Thursdays
7:00 pm - Global Prayer Meeting