Welcome to Grace
Grace has served south Evanston since 1938.
We are a diverse church, with a diversity of ages. Our roots reach back to a variety of places with members from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, and other countries. We are multicultural and strive to represent those cultures within worship. We are single people, partnered people, families. We are people of all genders and ages and sexualities and expressions. We are BIPOC and white. We are lifelong Evanstonians and recent residents. We are immigrants. We are multilingual people, able bodied and people with disabilities, neurodiverse and neurotypical. We are children of God. We are beloved.
The ministry of Grace is about living out our Vision and Core Values. Every person in the Grace community has permission, and is encouraged, to carry out this ministry; in whatever ways God is calling them.
These ministries are happening all the time - through creative Sunday School, meaningful worship, stocking the Little Free Pantry on our campus, acting as a neighborhood center for action and connection, local and international advocacy, LGBTQIA+ ministries, and much more.
The ministry of Grace is about partnership.
Our partners include:
-SamaraCare Counseling, which provides spiritually sensitive counseling.
-YWCA's Alternatives to Violence program, which works with those in need of addressing abusive behavior.
-Family Promise Northshore, a national, interfaith organization dedicated to addressing family homelessness. As part of Family Promise, Grace welcomes housing insecure and homeless families to stay in our church building multiple times a year.
-Connections for the Homeless partners with the community to provide comprehensive, compassionate, well-resourced, and effective programs in an exceptional workplace.
-Refugees has been a new ministry focus for Grace. We welcome our new immigrant neighbors in a variety of ways as the needs arise.
We always welcome new ministry partners and follow the work of God in the world.
The ministry of Grace is about being a center for neighborhood action and connection.
Grace hosts many, many different groups and events from all over Evanston. We continue to be a regular polling place for our ward. Wonderful Wednesdays is a weekly community meal, free to all, where we offer crafts and games for kids and time for adults to relax and connect.
We hope to expand our outreach ministry even further in the coming years.
As an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation, we are also partnered with 8,900 worshipping communities across the 50 states and in the Caribbean region. The ELCA is made up of nearly 3.3 million members. As the ELCA, we are a church that walks by faith, trusting God's promise in the gospel and knowing that we exist by and for the proclamation of this gospel word.
We are a member of the Metropolitan Chicago Synod.
Grace is a Reconciling in Christ congregation. Our RIC Statement is as follows:
As the people of God at Grace Lutheran Church, Evanston, IL, we are called to be affirming, courageous and caring. We welcome ALL who hear God’s Word and experience God in their lives, including persons who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, & persons of all gender identities, expressions, and sexual orientations. We invite everyone to participate fully in worship, the sacraments, service, and leadership no matter one’s race, culture, ethnicity, age, physical or mental abilities, socioeconomic position, family structure, background, place on one’s faith journey or anything that divides us as God’s beloved children. We are committed to the work of anti-racism, social and economic justice, and environmental care.
We strive to follow the invitation from Jesus to love one another in all that we say and do. You are made in the image of God and your identities are sacred in this place. There is a place for you here, you are welcome to come as your authentic self, named and claimed as a child of God.
Learn more about RIC from Reconciling Works.
We honor this native land. Our community of faith, Grace Lutheran Church- Evanston, acknowledges that our church sits on the ancestral homelands of the Myaamia, Ho-Chunk, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Peoria and Oceti Sakowin peoples. With God’s help, we endeavor to repair ongoing injustices and grow toward right relationships with Indigenous people.
We lament the broken treaties and genocide that happened and the unjust legacy that persists. We faithfully commit ourselves to interrupt this legacy as part of our pledge to work toward racial justice. We will endeavor to listen to and respect our Indigenous siblings and form relationships to work towards healing, justice, and repair.