Jeremy Pace

Director of Missions & Church Planting

Life Story

I was blessed to be born into a home where both my parents loved the Lord very much. I grew up in an environment in which daily time in the Scriptures, in prayer, and with the family was highly valued. I remember my parents, almost on a nightly basis, sharing the gospel with my little brother, sister, and myself. Each night they would pray for our salvation, and one night on our 1970's orange, flowered couch while my mom was praying that God would grant her children salvation, my eyes where opened and the gospel became real to me. I was only eight years old, but I remember going to bed that night with such joy and peace like I had never experienced before in my short life.

While I truly believe that on that night I came to known Christ as my Lord and Savior, like many my age who grew up in the church, my relationship with Christ turned more into religion and routine than anything else. For the next several years, through junior high and into high school, I was outwardly the "good Christian kid" who did all the right rituals, but on the inside I was suffocating the Spirit by still trying to earn grace through my actions. In doing so, I became bitter toward doing what was expected of me and for a time really lived two lives, one way at school and one way at home and church.

On a trip back from visiting a friend over the Thanksgiving holiday in my junior year of high school, while sitting alone on a plane, I can clearly remember the Lord speaking to me and telling me that all the religious things I was involved in were not getting me Him and that this double life I was living was keeping me from abundant life. That plane ride back marked a significant change in my life. The things I was doing to earn grace began to turn into an overflow of grace and almost literally overnight my life of double living ended.

The rest of my high school career was spent learning how to engage in relationship with Christ and being obedient out of love for Christ. As I progressed in this the Lord began to put on my heart the call to shepherd His church. It was something I did not want to do, but in many ways the Lord was gifting and leading me into it. The summer after my senior year of high school I finally committed to do what God was calling and began to pursue full time "ministry."

That journey has been a humbling and sanctifying one in which the Lord has broken many misconceptions of what we call "ministry," given me a deep heart for His bride, and in which He introduced me to my bride as well! I still struggle with the routines of religion at times, but God is gracious and faithful to continue to reveal to me the freedom found in Christ; a freedom that ironically enslaves me to Him!

My story is one of God graciously softening a very religious heart and Him staying faithful during all my stubbornness. It is a story that is continuing even this moment, and I am inexpressibly grateful and humbled because of it.

Hope for The Village Church

I pray earnestly that The Village Church would be a people not defined by four walls, but rather defined by a passionate pursuit of Christ that leads to total obedience to all that He commands of His children. In doing so, I hope that we would be a people remembered not by our numbers, but by our lives lived for the glory of the Lord. In 100 years the name of The Village may not be known, but I pray that the name of Jesus Christ would be made famous in every area of our city, state, country, and world in which we are privileged to play!