“Conversations about life and ministry in New Bedford.”

A Christmas Prayer for a Pandemic Year - Psalm 121

In December of 2020, Jess Proudfoot, an Urban Missionary at Grace Harbor Church, and the North American Mission Board teamed up to encourage hope for the struggling, the weary, and the fatigued.

Based on Psalm 121, this short video demonstrates how a believers confidence in the Lord can be bolstered by praying God’s words back to God. Struggling with how to even pray? Might we suggest turning to the Psalms and allowing them to lead you in prayer.

Covenant together, live faithful

On September 6, 2020 Grace Harbor Church in New Bedford constituted together by bringing covenanting together, taking the Lord’s Supper for the first time, and calling a pastor. The service was led by the Elders of Grace Harbor Church Providence.

It’s not everyday that you get to witness a church being born. And it’s even rarer that a church would be born in the middle of a global pandemic. But in New Bedford, Jesus’ promise to build his church continues to ring true.

In this service, Grace Harbor Church in New Bedford was born by 17 members being officially brought into membership, and voting to call Morgan Proudfoot as the Lead Pastor.

Grace harbor church interview

Kevin McKay, pastor of Grace Harbor Church Providence interviews Morgan Proudfoot after New Bedford held their first soft-opening service. They talk about the unique challenges and blessings of planting a church in a pandemic.

Grace Harbor Church in New Bedford had great intentions of opening in March on Easter Sunday. But with COVID-19, that opening was delayed by a few months. Nevertheless, by God’s grace, we were still able to open in a pandemic, which made our soft-opening on Sunday June 7th even sweeter.

In September of 2020, we had our public opening to the city and continue to gather every Sunday since.

mission: new bedford

In June of 2019, The Village Church in Denton Texas sent a mission team to New Bedford to help renovate the historic church building that Grace Harbor Church was given. Here they share about their experience of their construction mission trip.

What was unique about this trip is that about half of them had extensive construction experience, and the other half were hard working laborers. This wonderful combination of skill and muscle allowed them to get an enormous amount of work done.

We are so grateful for ministry partnerships join in with us on gospel mission and come to New Bedford.

$100k’s in 90 days

In an attempt to raise the necessary funds to renovate the historic church building that Grace Harbor Church would gather in, we were given a matching donation of $50,000. This meant that we needed to raise $100,000 in 90 days. God exceeded all our our expectations.

We are happy to report that because of the sacrificial giving of God’s people, churches across the nation, charitable foundations, and many businesses… God brought in $300,000 in total for the renovations of our facility.

To help offset the cost, we did most of the work ourselves. Our sending churches rolled up their sleeves, and worked right along side of us, and one full year after we began construction, we finished. It was a tremendous amount of work, but we now have a home for decades to come that allows us to be a strategic gospel-outpost for the kingdom.