'We're here to stay': Lakeland's Grace City Church will build new campus on 50-acre site
Andrew Gard acknowledges that Grace City Church has often tested the resiliency of those who attend it.
“We say all the time — Grace City, I mean, really since the very beginning, has not been the most convenient church to go to,” said Gard, the senior pastor along with his wife, Christina Gard.
Parking has been a problem at the church’s two locations, requiring some congregants to dash across South Florida Avenue to attend services at the original site in the Lake Morton Historic District.
Neither that location nor its successor on New Jersey Road has had sufficient space to accommodate the growing congregation.
“I think our congregation sees the impacts that we have in people's lives in our community, and so they're willing to put up with some inconveniences in order to see people reached in such a powerful and profound way,” Christina Gard said.
Grace City is on track to establish a new and permanent location that will abound with acreage and offer a sanctuary finally large enough for the congregation. But parishioners of the non-denominational church must wait a bit longer.
In February, the church bought roughly 50 acres that borders Banana Lake. Signs appeared along Bartow Road just north of Highland City announcing, “Future home of Grace City Church.”
Church leaders hope to break ground in the fall on the first of three planned phases, which will yield a main building with a 1,700-seat sanctuary. The long-term design includes a housing complex for college students in the church’s internship program, along with trails and other amenities the Gards hope will make the property an attraction for local residents, regardless of whether they attend the church.
“It's exciting,” Andrew Gard said. “I think you're always nervous when you have to raise that kind of money, but we've seen God do miraculous things since Grace City started eight years ago. And so we're confident that he'll continue to do that. And for us, there's nothing quite like putting stakes in the ground. And so it's a cool reality that, man, ‘We're here to stay.’”
Church continues to grow
The Gards, now the parents of twin 5-year-olds, arrived in Lakeland from Seattle in 2011, as Andrew took a position as campus pastor at Southeastern University and Christina became an assistant professor. The church began with meetings in the couple’s living room in 2015.
Lakeland Mayor Bill Mutz, who had not yet been elected, was among the original group who supported the quest to establish Grace City. Mutz and his wife, Pam, regularly attend, as do some of their children and grandchildren. Lakeland City Commissioner Stephanie Madden is also a frequent worshipper, Andrew Gard said.
“Christina and Andrew are just pretty incredible leaders,” Mutz said. “They are visionary. They're not excuse-makers. They’re good developers of leadership.”
Mutz said many who attend Grace City fit into one of two categories: those who had become disenchanted with another church and those who are younger and were not raised in a church environment.
In September 2015, Grace City launched at the former Westminster Presbyterian Church at 730 S. Florida Ave., a Gothic-style structure with a brick exterior dating to 1925. Within a year, the church was drawing 1,400 people to five services on Sunday mornings.
“People would line up around the block in that blazing heat and wait for the next service because they couldn't get into the building,” Christina Gard said.
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Grace City moved services in 2018 to the former home of Lakeside Baptist Church on the property of Geneva Classical Academy at 1736 New Jersey Road. While leasing the sanctuary, the church continued to use the South Florida Avenue location for offices and leadership programs until 2022, when it sold the property to The King’s Church.
Grace City opened a satellite church two years in the Ybor City section of Tampa.
Andrew Gard said that Grace City, which now has 33 employees, has been searching for a permanent site in Lakeland for five or six years. He said church leaders wanted a property with at least 20 or 30 acres, vast enough to hold not just a church building but other planned components.
Gard learned about the property on the west side of Bartow Road and began discussions with Dane Rogers of Rogers Brothers, the owners. The church closed in February on purchasing connected parcels totaling about 50 acres.
The property, pasture land north of Innovation Drive, is roughly L-shaped, extending west from Bartow Road and running south along the shore of Banana Lake. The site is outside Lakeland's city limits and provides close access from the Polk Parkway. Andrew Gard said that some congregants live in Winter Haven, Auburndale and Plant City.
Grace City is still raising the funds needed to begin construction on phase one, calling the campaign “A Church Worth Building.” Leaders have raised $4.3 million since October and have another $2.1 million in outstanding pledges, Andrew Gard said. It will take about $7.2 million to start the project, which will be financed, he said.
The first phase comprises a main church building that will also house a preschool, an indoor play area and a lounge. Artist renderings, prepared by the Aspen Group, a Chicago-based architecture firm specializing in churches, show a sleek, two-story structure with a white exterior. The auditorium will contain curved rows of seats facing a spacious stage backed by a large video screen and flanked by two smaller screens.
The 1,700-seat auditorium will be one of the largest church sanctuaries in the Lakeland area. Family Worship Center opened a 3,200-seat building in 2012.
Creating a 'destination'
In later phases, the church will build housing for the Grace City Leadership Institute, an internship program. Christina Gard said the program enrolls 45 to 65 students from 11 states, currently housed in apartments.
Church leaders oversee a youth ministry program that reaches more than 500 students a week in local schools, she said. Grace City congregants volunteer with local and international organizations, including Parker Street Ministries, One More Child and the Laundry Project.
Church leaders plan eventually to build a counseling center and a chapel, which could host weddings, funerals and other events. The master plan also calls for creating trails and installing play structures on the property.
“So our hope and heart is that it wouldn't just be a place for Sunday worship, it would actually be a destination during the week,” Christina said.
“People can park there and run the lake, just like they run Lake Hollingsworth or Bonnet Springs (Park),” Andrew added. “That's really the goal is to be a destination in that part of town.”
Mutz said that Geneva Classical Academy, a private school offering pre-K through 12th grade, would benefit from having the auditorium now used by Grace City.
“It’s the right thing for us to do, from the standpoint of making it possible for us to sustain more attendees,” Mutz said. “We don't talk about members because that's not what we do. I mean, you choose to attend a church because it's a place wherein you thrive and grow spiritually. … Geneva needs that space that we're in, so the timing is really good for both facilities.”
Grace City held a “first look” gathering in March, hosting a few hundred congregants under a massive tent on a Saturday morning. Leaders provided tours of the property, using artist renderings to show what will eventually be built there.
“We've lived here for 13 years in August, and this is the place we're going to give the rest of our lives to,” Christina Gard said. “So we love our church, love our community, love the people. And the greatest privilege we have is watching people better their lives through the salvation message and discipleship process. It's literally such a gift to watch people's lives changed.”
Gary White can be reached at gary.white@theledger.com or 863-802-7518. Follow on X @garywhite13.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Lakeland's Grace City Church plans move to 50-acre site on Bartow Road
