Page 162 - Grace150 Devotional

The “Grace Worship Hour” went on the air in October 1974 on WEEK-TV,
channel 25. Even more cutting edge, the church began broadcasting on its own
channel on local cable television. Cable TV was new to Peoria at that time, and
Grace was able to program channel 13 with not only the “Grace Worship Hour,”
but dozens of other programs for children and adults produced by the church,
including “Black Buffalo’s Pow Wow,” “Harvest Fields,” and “God’s Rock House,”
to name a few.
Over the years, the mainline Presbyterian denomination had been getting more
liberal. For a long time, Grace Presbyterian was able to resist this drift because it
was a large church in a small presbytery of only 19 churches. However, as the 1970s
drew to a close, the church was brought to a decision point. The denomination
restructured their presbyteries, and Grace became a part of a presbytery with
over 100 churches, most of which were theologically liberal, meaning they didn’t
believe in the authority and inerrancy of the Bible. They even ordained a man as
a Presbyterian minister who did not believe in the divinity of Christ. To preserve
the doctrinal purity of the church, it was deemed necessary for Grace to leave the
mainline denomination.
This was a major decision. There were disputes over who owned the property
(the local congregation or the denomination) and whether the church could
continue to use the word “Presbyterian” in its name. Nevertheless, on May 25,
1980, at the best-attended congregational meeting in the history of the church,
the members of Grace voted 989 to 2 to separate from the United Presbyterian
Church denomination, and trust God to work out the details.
In the end, Grace Presbyterian Church was able to keep its property and its name.
On April 7, 1982, the church joined the more conservative Presbyterian Church
in America (PCA), a denomination that takes a strong position on scriptural
inerrancy and accepts the Westminster Confession of Faith as its system of
doctrine. It remains part of the PCA today.
Dr. Dunn was the pastor of Grace for just under 40 years—nearly a third of the
church’s life up to that time. He retired in 1991, and Rev. John Queen was called to
Grace in June 1992. Rev. Queen brought many changes to Grace during his time
as pastor. He changed the name of the “Grace Worship Hour” to “Grace Alive.”
And he brought in a new music minister who produced a new Christmas concert
called “A Grace Family Christmas” as an outreach to the community. The first
Christmas special was broadcast on WEEK-TV in 1993.

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