Music gently hovers over a swaying crowd, tickled by raised hands and voices that are carried up by the melodic vibrations of choral composition. It radiates off of faces filled with awe.
Hope lives here — it’s made its home in the heart of the small sanctuary.
That hope began with one email that shook the destiny of the humble Abundant Grace Community Church.
In 2011, senior pastor Phil Courson prayed a simple prayer based on an impression during his Bible study — nothing out of the ordinary. He shared with associate pastor Mike Gilland and other church leaders his desire to host contemporary Christian singer Brandon Heath in their 650-seat church.
Gilland, who is also the worship leader, said he doubted if the event could flourish in a church that was still recovering from smaller concerts that financially fizzled earlier that year.
Two days later, Courson’s prayer was answered.
Gilland received an email from Heath’s agency asking if the church would be willing to host him.
But he said he didn’t recall ever sending an email — it’s still a mystery to this day.
“It was a big, big initial challenge for us to even think about doing that,” Gilland said. “But we prayed about it, and we just felt the green light all the way across.”
Tickets sold out a week in advance, flooding the auditorium — that doubles as a basketball court — to full capacity as Heath and his tourmates Dave Barnes and Kristian Stanfill led a sold-out concert in March 2011.
Heath, who won Male Vocalist of the Year at the Gospel Music Association’s Dove Awards in 2009 and 2010, was the first famous Christian singer to grace the church’s stage.
“It’s almost like the Lord just dropped this in our lap, and it came with that ironic request that Phil made,” Gilland said. “I don’t think it was irony. I believe God was opening a door for our church.”
The first home for Abundant Grace was Metro Life Church near Orlando. The Coursons and several other families who followed the church’s idea of taking the gospel to other cities, left their jobs and planted Abundant Grace in Gainesville.
It started in 1997 in a local condo meeting room. They progressed to meeting in a middle school and an elementary school before opening their own building in 2007.
After the church began sponsoring mainstream artists in 2011, more people saw what was happening inside the small church. It has since grown in membership, Gilland said.
The pastors pray about which bands to bring next, but usually it’s the artists who reach out to the church, he said.
“I think our adventure with doing concerts was completely unexpected,” Gilland said. “It has turned out to be such a delightful experience in so many different ways that we just scratch our heads about how we were able to do this.”
[A version of this story ran on page 9 on 11/20/2014]
