Fostering Growth in Grace in Local Church Congregations

What is it about?

Grace is a widely recognized social quality; we use various forms of the word grace—gracious, grace period, graceful, or graceless in many contexts. Grace is also commonly believed to be an important Christian virtue. Jesus was said to personify grace. So what can be done to nurture the development of grace in the life of individuals who desire this quality? Our goal was to see if grace could be increased among members of local churches. In cooperation with local ministers we developed a “grace campaign” that combined a sermon series about grace, small group studies of a book on grace (The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith), and suggestions for a variety of personal grace activities in which individuals could participate. We cooperated with four local churches. Each church used its own adaptation of the grace campaign. After six to eight weeks we found increased scores on a general measure of grace in two of the congregations. In the remaining two churches, we found increased an increase in two aspects of grace, in grace to self in both churches, and grace to others in one church; self-forgiveness also increased among those in these two churches. In all four churches, we also found an increase in the tendency for members to report their Christian commitment as a central motive that guided their lives.

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Why is it important?

Growing in grace is a common interest among Christian groups. This is the demonstration we know of which showed that efforts to encourage growth in grace actually work. Our results provide encouraging support for approaches such as the grace campaign and suggest that such they can be readily adapted to fit with varying local concerns.

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