Almost everyday, I have someone ask me about Grace Place!  I get all kinds of questions.   People want to know:  What is it?  How does it work?  Who can come?  Is it really free?  Where does all of the stuff come from?  When does all of the work get done?  Will you take my stuff?  Can I participate?

I’ve written a couple of blog post and thought I would write a new one, now that we are approaching the  half-year mark of participating in this amazing ministry opportunity!  The most simple way that I know to put it is:  Grace Place is a place where the church can share the grace of God in a very real, tangible and meaningful way with others.

The concept is fairly simple:  People take new or gently used items that they are no longer using and donate them to Grace Place, who puts them out in a mini mall/store format for people to come and purchase.  The only catch is that people cannot purchase with money, they can only purchase with grace!  You cannot buy anything for money here!

We give out $50.00 Grace Place Gift Cards and people can use these to come to the Grace Place mini/mall store to shop for clothes, household items, toys, furniture, decorations and etc. as long as supplies last!  (Only one card per person please!)  (And if you don’t have a card, come see us and we will hook you up with one!)

People can come and shop once a month and every month they get to take advantage of $50 worth of Grace.  You cannot buy anything from the Grace Place store for money.  Some people call it free, but we call it GRACE!  The receiving of stuff from the store that you have not earned or deserved is a tremendous picture of what God does for each of us by giving us His Son Jesus – Who we could never earn or deserve!

This ministry can be experienced at our Multi-Site Campus located at 407 Ridgewood Drive.  Our current hours of operation for Shoppers is Monday and Wednesdays from 10 AM – 12:00 PM, Tuesday Evenings from 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM. and the 2nd Saturday of every month from 10 AM – 2 PM.

We also have a “GRACE DINNER” on the 4th Friday of every month at 6:30 PM.  This is a restaurant style meal prepared and served as if you were walking into a local eating establishment, just one catch – it does not cost you anything – its paid for by GRACE!

If you have items that you would like to donate, please give us a call to make arrangements to drop them off at Grace Place or drop by on Mondays from 9 AM – 8 PM or Wednesdays from 9 AM – 5 PM and we will have someone to assist you.

We can always use help running the store, sorting, preparing and presenting merchandise. If you are interested in volunteering at Grace Place, then please give us a call – we would love to meet you and serve together.  (Northwood Main Campus = 864-877-5417)

If you would like more information or would like to set up a tour, then please feel free to email pastor@rightdirections.org  It would be a pleasure and blessing to show you what God is doing in our lives and the lives of the new friends that we are making every week!

Thanks so much for your interest in Grace Place and for helping to make the dream a reality!

The world has changed and is changing!  This is really nothing new, the world has always been in a constant state of change.  The problem now a days, it that most of us don’t want to acknowledge the change.  We live with an “if we ignore it – it might go away” attitude!

This attitude does not help, it actually makes things worse!  Our unwillingness to face and deal with reality has caused a massive pile up of unresolved issues and challenges that have grown into a monumental mountain of depression and frustration.

I know that life is hard – Life is hard for almost all of us!  I know that life is not fair – life is unfair for almost all of us!  I know that you have more on you than you think you can deal with, but I am here to remind you that God is bigger than anything you are facing and God has a plan to use the change for our blessing and growth as we love and trust Him.

Life is changing and this is not a bad thing!  This is actually a good thing, because as life changes, it offers us an opportunity for things to get better!  Below is a reminder list of things to think about and remind yourself of as you seek to get your life headed in the right direction by embracing change, rather than fighting against it!

1.)  There is a God and you are not Him!

2.)  God has a plan and it’s the best!

3.)  You cannot follow two plans at once – you’ve got to make a choice – His plan or your plan?

4.)  Thinking about it is only the beginning!

5.)  Thinking must be followed by action if you want results!

I hear talk all of the time!  I work with people everyday of my life and in all kinds of different situations.  I get to see people at their best and at their worst.  And as I get older, I am beginning to learn some simple little truths that have the capacity to have significant impact through our lives, in our relationships and on our planet!

Last week, I heard a lady talking and everything she said was negative.  Her whole conversation consisted of her telling the other person everything that was wrong with everything and everybody else.  I know this lady and she is basically a good person, but she has gotten stuck in the rut of critical negativism and she has no idea how to get out.

I walked away from what I had heard and thought about how damaging it was to this lady, who she was talking to, who she was talking about and anyone else that might have happened to hear it.  Everything she said, she said (in her mind) trying to be helpful, but she was not being helpful.  She was being everything but helpful!

I thought about what would and could happen, if before she went out and started talking all of this negative trash talk, if instead, she decided to take my Grandmother’s advice:  “If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all!” How different would our world be, our relationships be, if we trashed the trash talk and replaced it with talk that builds up and accentuates the positive?

We live in a negative world, and if we expect or hope that it will ever be positive, then we must make this simple change:  Get rid of the negative and replace it with the positive! It’s not easy, but it is possible and it will change our lives, the lives of those around us and our world, if we will just attempt this simple change!