Grace Gospel Fellowship
Grace Gospel Fellowship belongs to the Non-denominational and independent family of churches.
Governance: association.
The association of the "Grace Movement" (1944) — mid-Acts dispensationalism, with Grace Christian University in its orbit; congregations are independent.
Congregation count not yet source-verified against RCMS 2020; NULL rather than estimated.
The fellowship of the Grace Movement — mid-Acts dispensationalists who hold that the church began with Paul, and whose churches therefore generally do not practice water baptism.
Heritage
The Grace Gospel Fellowship was organized in 1944 by pastors and teachers of the "Grace Movement," including leaders shaped by J. C. O'Hair's Chicago ministry, with Cornelius Stam and Charles Baker among its formative teachers. Its distinctive is mid-Acts dispensationalism: the conviction that the church, the body of Christ, began not at Pentecost but with the apostle Paul, to whom the mystery of the present age was revealed. Grace Christian University in Grand Rapids, Michigan stands in its orbit, and its congregations are independent churches in voluntary fellowship.
Theological family
Evangelical and rigorously dispensational at the mid-Acts position: salvation by grace through faith alone, the Pauline epistles as the direct charter of the present age — and therefore, in most congregations, no water baptism, since baptism is held to belong to a prior program; the Lord's Supper is generally kept.
Who decides what
Congregational: independent churches; the Fellowship provides association, doctrinal identity and ministerial fellowship without governing.
What a first-time visitor would find
A plain evangelical service — hymns or contemporary songs, communion in most churches, and teaching that works closely through Paul's letters; a visitor may notice the absence of baptisms and hear the reason taught.
What it has always cared about
Rightly dividing the word of truth — its watchword from 2 Timothy; grace without mixture as the test of teaching; patient verse-level Bible teaching.
Its gift to the wider church
The Grace Movement pressed the whole church to precision about what belongs to whom in Scripture — and it is a standing, orderly demonstration that evangelicals who differ even on the sacraments can still be evangelicals in fellowship.
Commonly confused with
With mainstream dispensationalists (who hold the church began at Pentecost and practice baptism); with hyper-dispensationalists further still from the center, a label Grace Movement teachers themselves dispute; and with Grace-named churches of no relation, of which America has thousands.
Range of views inside it
Churches vary on how strictly the distinctives are pressed and on ordinance practice at the margins; the mid-Acts framework is the shared identity.
A note from the mapmakers: Nothing here may be asserted of a specific congregation, including its practice of the ordinances. RCMS 2020 publishes no verified count for this fellowship, so this record carries none. Sentences drawn from this record hedge as "Grace Gospel Fellowship churches typically…" and yield to the congregation's own materials.
Sources: Grace Gospel Fellowship — what we believe (Grace Gospel Fellowship) · Things That Differ: The Fundamentals of Dispensationalism (Cornelius R. Stam, Berean Bible Society)
Where Grace Gospel Fellowship churches are on the map
5 Grace Gospel Fellowship congregations appear on The Church Map, across 4 states.
More of the Non-denominational and independent story · Find these churches on the map