We started as a vision in 1997 that God gave to Pastor Steve and his wife, Winnie, to reach Asian Americans and their friends in Silicon Valley. Steve’s background and education in church work and Asian American psychology, combined with Winnie’s career in hardware design engineering made them a good fit for carrying out this vision. They gathered friends and friends-of-friends in their living room for vision-casting meetings during the summer of 1997 and by October a core group of 18 was formed.
The core group was invited to hold worship services at Foothill Covenant Church in Los Altos, which seemed an ideal place for reaching out to the Asian Americans concentrated in Sunnyvale, Cupertino and Mountain View. By September of 1998 the core group had grown to 75 regular worshipers and Grace Community Covenant Church had its Grand Opening on September 13, 1998.
By 2004 the leadership team knew that we couldn’t stay at Foothill. We had been treated so well that we were like adult kids still living at home. It was time to move to our own “apartment” and test our mettle. The site search process tried our patience, but finally the Palo Alto site became available when Avenidas Senior Day Health Center vacated the building to move to their own building in Mountain View.
Our vision was for a church community that was inviting to Asian Americans and their friends, a place of spiritual formation in community that was intergenerational, with energetic and accessible worship, and a heart for mercy and justice in the surrounding community and for world mission. We’re living out this vision, but in a new location and with a building that better accommodates the growing number of young families that call Grace home. The new site also gives us better visibility and access to our neighborhood.
Grace Community Covenant Church is a part of the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) denomination and an active participant of the Pacific Southwest Conference within the ECC.
