Our History
Our History
The story of our church is a story of faithful men and women have walked in obedience to God to reach Odessa, Texas.
// Grace Baptist Church was founded in 1963 as an independent, fundamental baptist church. It was a typical traditional small, conservative church. The church had its ups and downs throughout the years with the oil booms and oil busts. This church has never compromised the message of the Gospel, but in the early 2000s, leaders began to sense God leading them to change some of the methods of the church.
The current pastor, Josh, came on staff in August of 2006 as the youth pastor. In 2006, the structure of the church was still historically independent, fundamental baptist. This means on Sundays we had Sunday School, morning service, Sunday evening service, and a Wednesday night prayer service. We also had a Sunday morning kids class, AWANA, youth, and several other programs. This structure is a pretty normal baptist church service structure in West Texas.
In 2009, God impressed it upon the heart of our some of our leaders including Pastor Josh and the pastor at that time, Cory Ward, to change the way we do church as a whole. In 2009, we found that having so many programs in a small church left everyone drained and exhausted, so we went from a traditional baptist structure and completely scaled everything back. We decided to drop Sunday school and much of the programming that we had in place. We scaled back to Sunday morning worship gathering, Community Groups meeting in people’s homes throughout the week, kid’s Sunday morning worship, and a youth program.
Even though the leadership was trying to walk in obedience to what God was asking them to do, many people left the church that year. There were times in 2009 where the church almost had to close its doors. But God was faithful. This marked a very significant time in the life of our church. It was a huge step in allowing our church to be who God has called us to be, and it brought us closer together as a church family.
In 2011, when Pastor Josh stepped from the position of Youth Pastor to Lead Pastor, the church changed our name from Grace Baptist Church to Redemption Church. This marked a new beginning in the life of our church.