GraceWay Baptist Church Serving Kiowa-Serving Christ

The Conception

In 1997, several people saw the need and became burdened for a Southern Baptist work in the Kiowa, Colorado, and vicinity. Pastor Bobby Cornelius of Grace Baptist Church in Deer Trail, along with his wife Billie, who were Mission Service Corps Volunteers, began to “canvas” the Kiowa area to see about the possibilities and need for a work in this area. Pastor D. Ray Taylor from the Parkway Baptist Church in Franktown, was contacted to see if he had interest in partnering with Grace in this endeavor and found that Parkway was indeed interested in this beginning work

Things Begin to Happen

In the summer of 1997, a group of people “on Mission” from Mississippi came to Deer Trail in order to help with the building of their church facility and help with Vacation Bible Schools in the area. Since the group was quite large, the Cornelius’ brought some of the group to Kiowa to help with our very first “Back Yard Bible Club” which was held in Burt and Carmen Stan fill’s back yard. Pastor Riley Ainsworth, his wife Helen, from Mississippi, Carmen Stanfill, and Parkway’s summer missionary, Beth Acree were the staff. We were blessed with about 10 neighborhood children coming each day.

Worship Services and Children Ministry

In February, 1998, Billie Cornelius and Carolyn Wright, from the Grace Baptist Church in Deer Trail, Colorado, came to the Kiowa vicinity and began to seriously visit the area and found some people who were interested in an Evening Worship Service and a Thursday after school Bible Adventure Club for grade school children. Bobby and Billie Cornelius contacted Sister Blanche Byrd, Pastor of the Nazarene Church and she graciously consented to rent to them, at a very small fee, the building for these activities. Since the Nazarenes only used their church on Sunday Mornings, Sister Byrd was pleased to have GraceWay use it on Sunday Evenings and Thursday afternoons. Bobby and Billie Cornelius, and Carolyn and Don Wright came over each Sunday Evening to hold services. After two months, Pastor D Ray Taylor and wife Betty, from Parkway Baptist in Franktown, began to attend, and every Thursday they would bring a car load of kids over for the children’s program. Soon others from the Parkway Baptist Church began to attend, including Pat and Jack McAskill who had moved into the Kiowa area the year before. Pat and Jack began leading the music for the worship service and helping with Bible Adventure club.

GraceWay becomes a Mission

From this very small beginning GraceWay developed into a mission with two sponsoring churches, Grace Baptist Church of Deer Trail and Parkway Baptist Church of Franktown, thus being appropriately named GraceWay.

First Vacation Bible School

In the summer of 1998, GraceWay held its very first Vacation Bible School with the assistance of Pastor Riley Ainsworth and his Mississippi Mission group from Liberty Baptist Church in Jefferson, Mississippi. This first V.B.S. was held at the Nazarene building. Classes were held all over the church property each in the shade of a big tree. In fact one creative teacher taught the story of Zaccheus while perched up in a tree. This group came the next two years to assist us in V.B.S. and in the summer of 2001 we held our first V.B.S. in the Kiowa Park and our own members were available to staff this wonderful time with the “Big Tent” borrowed from our local Baptist association.

Mission Pastor Called

During the first Vacation Bible school in 1998, it became apparent to Bobby Cornelius, D. Ray Taylor, Pastors of the sponsoring churches and Pastor Riley Ainsworth from Mississippi, that there was a need for a Pastor who lived in the community. They approached Jack McAskill, who at first was very reluctant because he had never pastored. After much prayer and a mission trip to the Ukraine where God showed him how He could be used as Pastor if he were just willing to step out of his comfort zone, he agreed to accept the pastorate of GraceWay. On August 23, 1998, Jack was licensed to the gospel ministry and became church planter/pastor of the GraceWay Baptist Church.

The Big Move

The church members desire was to have a place for Sunday morning worship and God provided a very special place. On November 14, 1999, we had our first morning Worship Service at the Western Elbert County Seniors Center in Kiowa. We celebrated with the Vail Valley Quartet from Basalt, Colorado in concert that morning with a big pot lunch afterwards. About forty people were in attendance.

Sunday School Comes to GraceWay

Our members begin to think about having a Sunday school. If this was to come about we had to have people willing to teach, so we began to enlist teachers and select the curriculum. On September 9, 2001, we had our very first Sunday School including a Nursery taught by Pat McAskill, 3 and 4 year olds taught by Jessica Marks, 1st through 6th grades taught by Carmen Stanfill, Youth taught by Rich Marks, and Burt Stanfill teaching the Adults. We were fully staffed and away we went!

Constitution Day

The Lord blessed with growth and it soon became time to go from Mission Status to Church Status. On May 16, 2004, we had a great celebration in the Kiowa High School Cafeteria, commemorating our becoming a church. This was attended by people from the Colorado Baptist General Convention, the Platte Valley Association (which has now become the Great Commission Partnership Baptist Association), many other churches in our local association and friends. We, also, invited the Vail Valley Quartet from Basalt, Colorado to come and give a concert. A great day!

Our New Pastor

On December 18, 2005, Bro. Daniel Prentice, recently graduated from the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois, came in view of a call as our first paid Pastor of GraceWay Baptist Church. On January 8, 2006, at a called business meeting, we unanimously voted Daniel Prentice as our Pastor. Pastor Daniel, with his wife Beth and children Heidi and Benjamin moved the following week from Chicago to Kiowa and on January 22, he preached his first sermon as pastor. We are so blessed to have the Prentice Family as our Pastor and co-workers.

Good Things Still Happening

GraceWay is progressing under Pastor Daniel’s leadership. We have moved to a larger meeting place with room to grow, seeking property which will allow us to look forward to building our own facility. We have four new deacons, Keith Abbey, Harold Anderson, Rich Marks and Burt Stanfill. We are beginning to organize our church body into committees in order to further enhance our capabilities to reach others for Christ in the Kiowa community. Praise the Lord!