PANAMA CITY–Attendance and membership are soaring at Grace Covenant Church amid a local housing boom and the February completion of church facility renovations. The thriving church, surrounded by a swiftly growing community in Panama City, has doubled in size with young families moving into the neighborhood and looking for a place to worship.

In the past seven years, six new neighborhoods with 15,000 people have entered the once rural village of older homes, and developers have plans for those numbers to double in the next seven years.

“Our prayer is that this will be a church for the quickly developing neighborhoods in our immediate proximity,” said Thomas Gamble, pastor, Grace Covenant Church.

A church plant of Grace Church Bonifay, Grace Covenant Church officially launched in October 2020 with 19 members. The planting church recognized the need when a number of church members were driving one hour to attend services in Bonifay.

As a young church plant with no place to call home, Grace Covenant Church was healthy, growing and excited to receive property gifted by Brannonville Baptist Church, which had been a beacon of light in the late 1900s.

The gift included a worship center and fellowship hall that both needed updating and a children’s facility that was unusable after Hurricane Michael blew through in 2018. Through partnerships with the Florida Baptist Convention, the North American Mission Board and Pillar Network, along with church members’ generous giving, the church was able to make necessary renovations to the three structures that stood on the property.

In addition to modernizing the 1950s-style buildings, the three separate structures were brought under one roof, creating multiple spaces for welcoming guests and gathering to visit before and after services.

With a focus on local outreach, the church hosts neighborhood get-togethers, cookouts and field days to minister to the growing mission field all around them.

“Two local churches, which were about as different as could be, but both still part of the Florida Baptist Convention, were able to come together as Brannonville Baptist Church blessed Grace Covenant Church with a building in which to meet,” said Gamble.

“My prayer is that this will be a picture of Baptist associationalism of the future: churches working together to make the most efficient use of buildings that saints from generations past have sacrificed to build. As we grow, we would love to do this again. I believe it to be an incredibly faithful way for Baptists to work together to proclaim the gospel in our city.”