Josh Norris

In Our Stories by Kim Eiffert

“The members of the church and the connection to the community is what keeps me here. I had some bad experiences as a kid and that is what made it hard for me to start coming on a regular basis.”

My wife and I decided to look for a church once our oldest child, Jackson, started public school. He was in a Baptist preschool from the age of 2 until he started kinder. Once he started he no longer had a way to connect with his faith, or the chance to build on it. I did not grow up in a church environment so I was a little hesitant to join a church. I agreed that Jackson needed church but my own experiences made it tough for me. We tried one other church in Frisco for about two months and decided that we did not feel like it could be a long-term church home. We had visited GAUMC once for a memorial and my wife liked the way everyone treated us when we were there. That led her to watch a couple online sermons and its been our church since then. We attend the 11 o’clock threshold service and love it. We first started in October of 2014 and became members in January of 2016.

The members of the church and the connection to the community is what keeps me here. I had some bad experiences as a kid and that is what made it hard for me to start coming on a regular basis. I can say now, that if Grace Avenue would have been around when I was a kid I would have never thought twice about coming. I love how everyone is open to new things, and not everything is as it was in the past. That is a huge thing for me, I do not like the doom and gloom way of thinking that I have witnessed in the past at other churches, or with people that I have had contact with.

I joined the Czech Mission trip and was the only person who had never been on a mission trip, or worked with youth, or even been to a VBC program ever. That was never an issue and I did not feel as if I was treated differently for that. That is what I love about this church. The ability to accept anyone and everyone no matter what they have been through or how strong their faith was prior to Grace Avenue. I have not met a person at this church that I dislike, or feel as if they dislike me. I would have never thought that I would enjoy going to church or that I would do more than just attend the Sunday service. I have been on two mission trips now, I serve on the physical home team group, and have been apart of other activities here at the church. I look forward to being able to help out in as many ways as I can in the future.