About Us

Grace Bible Church is a small, Christ-cen­tered Bible church in Port Char­lotte, Flori­da. Our Pas­tor, Mark Clarke, does expos­i­to­ry (verse-by-verse) preaching.

Sunday Morning

We start out with a scrip­ture read­ing, fol­lowed by about thir­ty min­utes of singing. Our music team leads us in a vari­ety of songs, from old-time hymns to new­er praise choruses. 

After the singing, the chil­dren are free to go to junior church or nurs­ery if the par­ents so desire. These min­istries are led by our young peo­ple. Pas­tor Mark (or, on occa­sion, anoth­er broth­er) brings a mes­sage from the pas­sage we are cur­rent­ly study­ing as God leads.

We have about fif­teen to twen­ty min­utes to com­mune after­ward, and then Grace Bible Insti­tute begins.  This is a time where we usu­al­ly dis­cuss the mes­sage with Pas­tor Mark–bringing up ques­tions, com­ments, and prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tions. (Child­care is also pro­vid­ed dur­ing this time.)

1^st Sundays

The first Sun­day of every month is our com­mu­nion ser­vice, which is quite a bit dif­fer­ent from our nor­mal ser­vices. You’ll notice that as soon as you walk in–the chairs are set up in a large cir­cle, and the table with the bread and the cup is in the cen­ter. We sing a few hymns, and Pas­tor Mark Clarke deliv­ers the mes­sage God has laid on his heart.

After that, there is a time for every­one and any­one in the con­gre­ga­tion to respond to the mes­sage, sug­gest a hymn to sing, praise God, con­fess some­thing on their heart, read a pas­sage of scrip­ture, or any­thing else that the Holy Spir­it prompts for the edi­fi­ca­tion of the body. There is then giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty for var­i­ous men from the assem­bly, who have pre­pared them­selves, to lead us in wor­ship around the table by draw­ing our atten­tion to Christ and the sig­nif­i­cance of com­mu­nion. We then pass out the ele­ments and partake. 

[Church mem­ber­ship is not required to par­take, as we wel­come all who are in the fam­i­ly of Christ to join us in this show of uni­ty, but ask those who are not believ­ers to abstain. Please see 1^st Corinthi­ans 11:23–29]

After­ward, we form a big cir­cle around the church and sing a verse from a song. Fol­low­ing the ser­vice, we have our fel­low­ship (potluck) meal, to which all are wel­come. Every­one enjoys help­ing set up and get­ting to spend time with fel­low believers.

You can read more about our Pas­tor here.