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It was on October 27, 1991, that we had our first church service at Grace Chapel. That first service attracted about fifty attendees. We met in one of the classrooms of Grace Preparatory School in Mataheko, which was our church home for our first nine years. Prior to the first Sunday, I led an intercessory group that started with ten young men in North Kaneshie with a view to preparing a core group for the church. On my last count, this entire group of ten, except one, is serving as a Pastor in either Grace Chapel or some other church. Later, we moved the Intercessory group to Grace Preparatory School in Mataheko which became our church home for the first nine years. The intercessory group grew to about twenty-five members and we had been in prayer for several months, preparing the ground for the church planting.
Together with two colleagues Pastor Tim Brew and Laud Badoo, I (Pastor Wisdom Dafeamekpor) was officially released on 20th October 1991 from Calvary Baptist Church to start Grace Chapel. (Thanks to Rev. Fred Degbe). We were all enthusiastic, zealous, and happy to begin a new work with all its challenges. The challenges for a new church plant were numerous but our enthusiasm was high. I remember that for the first six weeks I kept preaching from only one verse: Habakkuk 2:2 “Write the Vision, and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it”. I was eager to cast a vision for the church before the enthusiastic group. We envisioned the new church as a place where the members will be fully committed to fulfilling the Great Commission of our Lord Jesus Christ, where the Presence and the Power of the Lord Jesus Christ should be experienced, and a place where lives are transformed through the Word of God. No one coming into our midst should remain at the same level, I expounded. According to 2 Corinthians 3:18, as we behold the glory of the Lord in a mirror (of the Word), we will be transformed by His Spirit from glory to glory. Consequently, even though we were just in a classroom of this children’s preparatory school, we started with a strong emphasis on the preaching and teaching of the Word of God, vibrant praise and worship sessions, and consecration meetings to go deeper in His River.
In spite of our zeal, enthusiasm, and preaching on vision, the number that we started with declined in the ensuing Sundays. That was the reality of starting a new church in a classroom for us. However, there was no room for discouragement from those who were just passing through. Our zeal did not lag and over time the number of the real members began to grow. Discipleship through the Home Cells Early, in the beginning, days of the church we introduced the cell system under the name of Grace Home Fellowships. We sought to establish members in the faith and disciple them through the Home Fellowships. We soon realized that pursuing discipleship through the home cell system required a much higher level of commitment from the leaders than merely showing up in church and experiencing a charged atmosphere. The price to pay for the cell leaders was high, but the price also became a pruning process of determining those who would really constitute the core members of the church. None of us was in full-time ministry. We were all full-time workers and doing the church as our response to the call of God. We had limited time at our disposal to do what we were aspiring to achieve. But we continued proclaiming the Word of the Lord, believing that He has called us for a work that would go beyond the perimeters of the school compound.
There were two humorous events in the first year that stuck in my mind and also had an impact on our direction today. We had one of my Minister friends (Rev. Stephen Mensah of CEM) in a three-day consecration meeting with us. For each night he dared us to go and get loudspeakers and start crusades if we were serious about the church. Every night he asked us what we were doing in the classroom whilst souls was dying outside the classroom. I thought it should have been obvious to him that we were doing church. He was so humorous and serious at the same time. We were meeting in the classroom for church and he was pointing to crusades and souls dying outside. The problem I had with his ministry to us was that I never considered myself as an evangelist and he has this evangelist flair in him. I also believed in running in my lane and not crossing over to another lane which I had not been called by God for.
2. Premarital Counselling: This aspect of the ministry caters for adult men and women preparing for marriage. Premarital counselling is scheduled for a minimum of 3 months and couples are assigned to trained marriage counsellors who after the period of counselling may recommended the couple to the Senior Pastor for blessing of their marriage.
However, his challenging message was clear to us. After he left we put money together, bought speakers, erected platforms and began mini-crusades in and around Mataheko. These yielded fruit as we began to take more people into the church and even opened our first branch with the converts from Russia, a suburb of Accra. As of now, we run at least four crusades every year in the regions outside Accra with multiple crusade teams.
One day we also had the Archbishop Duncan Williams who after his message and a very powerful prayer declared us Grace Chapel International. Until then we were known as Grace Chapel. The moment Archbishop exclaimed Grace Chapel International, all the members of this classroom congregation exploded into a big hilarious Amen! The next Sunday I came to church to see our bulletin and banners as Grace Chapel International. I was uncomfortable at first; do they know what an international ministry entails?
Nevertheless, we began to declare that we will be in other countries as well. Well, as of now we have branch churches in other countries as well – from the USA, South Africa, Liberia, Togo. We will soon be in other nations proclaiming Jesus Christ and Him crucified, trumpeting His redeeming grace that brings salvation to all men. We have learned that He has more in store for us than we could have imagined ourselves as stated in Ephesians 3:20. The vision we have, arising from His call on us, is evolving before us to greater and higher things.
Running a church from a children’s classroom required a lot of grace, determination, and improvisation and not to be ‘moved by sight’. We were happy in the children’s environment knowing that one day somehow we would have our own chapel. In fact, from the early years we started claiming, in faith, the water-logged area between the classroom and the main Kaneshie and Odorkor highway.
One day we came to church with our usual anticipation and enthusiasm to hold our usual service and were met with no classroom. A heavy rainstorm the previous night carried the roof of the school away. The school authorities decided to do a major renovation so as to have a more secure building that would withstand Accra’s weather. This renovation was major and would take a long time to complete. We suddenly became a church without a meeting place. But the school graciously agreed that we could meet on the school compound, if we so desired.
We were grateful for the use of the compound and every Saturday erected tents on the compound and for a considerable period we became a church under the tent or better still tarpaulin. We had to learn quickly the rudiments of holding church services under the tarpaulin; in particular, when to close church service under the tarpaulin, holding prayer meetings and other evening meetings in the open air. These were very good experiences for us. Even though it was difficult to be under the tarpaulin beyond 10 a.m. we were not deterred. We were content to make do with what was available to us, then. Paul said ‘for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content; I know how to be abased and I know how to abound.’ We also understood a bit of how Abraham felt leaving his father’s house to go to where God would lead him to without knowing where exactly, but following the leading of the Lord. We did our All-night prayer meetings in various places such as in Kokrobite Amalgamated Resort. Finally, Bishop Tackie – Yarboi (then Rev.) freely permitted us to hold our All-night prayer meetings in their church hall, if the time did not clash with theirs.
We kept on believing God and claiming the water-logged plot in front of the classroom as our possession. On one Sunday, when the Archbishop was a guest minister that day, we publicly led the whole church to stretch forth our hands towards the plot and prayed and declared the plot as ours. Period! One lady who was visiting the church on some Sundays got furious with us because she claimed the plot belonged to her father. She wondered how we could just claim her father’s plot with our ‘mere’ words. We succeeded in calming her down and continued our confession. Besides, over the years multiple owners of the plot kept surfacing up. Right before our eyes people came and started buildings on it just to be demolished by other claimants of the same plot. We maintained our confession and finally the High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus has watched over our confession. At the end of our ninth year we acquired the much coveted plot and joyfully stepped onto it as our own property. Of course, still under canopies by the roadside!
Right now, the plot houses our church facility, youth chapel, conference halls, offices and other facilities. Glory be to God! The testimony of possessing the land first by our confession, triumphing over the battles, not doubting that it was ours even when we saw buildings going up on it and being demolished the next day and finally entering the land as our own is a testimony that all the church members bear. The day we stepped on the land and physically possessed it was a day of great joy and encouragement to all members.