We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Adam Grill. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Adam below.
Hi Adam, you’ve got such an interesting story, but before we jump into that, let’s first talk about a topic near and dear to us – generosity. We think success, happiness and wellbeing depends on authentic generosity and empathy and so we’d love to hear about how you become such a generous person – where do you think your generosity comes from?
I believe we God is the most generous being to ever exist and generosity stems from His character. He created us. Gave us this amazing universe to live in. And then sent His son to earth to become the bridge for our sins. Talk about lavish generosity and love. From that deep well is where we are generous.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
After graduating from Huntington College Adam took a job working for Pulte Homes as a construction superintendent in Ohio. He was promoted a few times and ended up in the office in purchasing & design. They found a great Lutheran Church whose Sr. Pastor played basketball at MSU! Jenny took a job teaching at that church’s school and Adam helped out with the church’s building projects. During that season the Sr. Pastor asked Adam if he would be interested in going to seminary to become a Pastor and he said no.
A few months later Adam took a position at Centex Homes and they moved to Tennessee. On the way there they found out they were pregnant with their first child, Addie, so Jenny decided to become a stay-at-home mother. They got very involved in a Southern Baptist church and at one point their pastor asked Adam if he had ever thought about seminary to which Adam said no. We were building our dream house in Spring Hill Tennessee and 2 weeks before it was to be completed Jenny felt God tell her that we would never live there, she felt a nudge that they were going to be moved. A week later corporate leaders came to town and asked Adam to take a promotion and move to California or New Jersey.
Jenny preferred New Jersey & Adam preferred California….. so we moved to New Jersey! We became close friends with the Pastor of a Calvary Revival church’s children who were our age. He told Adam at one point that he clearly had a call on his life and should think about seminary. Adam said he did not know why people kept telling him that, but he would look into it. Thatcher was born and then Adam got promoted to VP of the Northeast United States and we were asked to move to DC. Two weeks later Pulte bought Centex.
We ended up not moving to DC but instead got moved to Missouri by Pulte. After looking for a good church for some time we ended up at a non-denominational church plant in a YMCA. We became very close friends with the Senior Pastor and one day he told Adam that he had a call on his life and should go to seminary. Finally, Adam listened.
He decided to go to Regent University in Virginia Beach because he did not want to go to a seminary that was tied to one denomination. After all the places we lived we found that God was moving across the greater church and was not exclusive to one denomination. Wyatt came along. Adam would fly back and forth for classes while still working full time. Long story short, after about 2 years of seminary Adam and the direction of the company were not aligning and he was let go. He was honestly excited because he thought this would be the time to go into ministry. Honestly, at that time he still had a lot of pride that God needed to break off and he thought he would be a gift to a church because he managed multi-million dollar contracts every day and dealt with billions of dollars every year and so he thought being an Executive Pastor would be an easy fit. He started applying for Executive Pastor roles all over the country and got exactly ZERO calls or emails back. Then got to thinking (like a business person) that he needed to apply to be a youth pastor and work his way up. He got exactly ZERO calls or emails back. After a few months Adam got frustrated with God and told him that if he wanted him to stay in the business world that he would have to make it happen because he was finally trying to do what God had been telling him to do for years and it was not happening. Adam told Jenny that and she said he should not talk to God like that! That same week 3 secular companies called Adam (God did it, Adam did not apply). Adam told Jenny he was going to be obnoxiously Christian so none of them would hire him. Long story short at all 3 interviews I told them how he was in seminary, how one day he would leave them to become a pastor, if they hired him, he would teach their people Biblical values. All three made me incredible offers. Adam told Jenny it was clear God did not want him to be in ministry, but obviously only Adam wanted to be….. So, after praying and fasting Adam and Jenny decided to take the offer from a Jewish company called Minto in Florida. They figured that they wanted to be in ministry and they would be the hardest ones to win to Jesus so we would go there!
After a few months in Florida they signed a 2-year lease in a gated community on a pink house because Addie wanted to live in a pink house. That night Adam and Jenny were at dinner celebrating and his phone rang. It was one of his seminary professors, Jim Wall. Jim said God told him to call him that night to tell Adam that he was to leave his career and come and be his mission’s pastor. His exact response was, “God must have a sense of humor because I just signed a 2-year lease and I will have to take a bath.” Jim said, “I know you are supposed to leave it all and come.” Long story short, through a visit, a lot of prayer and fasting we felt God tell us if we truly believe this life is the foundation of all eternity what won’t we give up for him. To which we said we would give up everything and then felt God say us to then do it. So, we took a MASSIVE leap of faith and did.
We moved to Virginia Beach to go into ministry at Community Church. We took a 90% pay cut. We moved out of our gated community and into a cockroach infest rental. We went from living the “American Dream” to living below the poverty line. Belle was born and we saw God show up in so many incredible ways. After a year Adam took on the role of Executive Pastor & Missions Pastor. That church grew to several thousand during our time there, went multi-site, planted churches and had missions going all over the world and locally.
After a few years in Virginia the Senior Pastor retired and Adam felt called to leave as well. Through a long series of God moments, we ended up at Rehoboth Reformed Church in McBain Michigan. God has something new to teach us. Leaving a thriving mega church to go pastor a small shrinking rural church took a big step of faith. God moved in powerful ways while we were there. The church grew consistently, and we reached so many people for Jesus!
After almost three years we started getting calls from churches in West Michigan asking if we would consider coming to be their senior Pastor. Through that season Jenny and were starting to feel that God might be calling us to plant a church. During that time, we heard about a church plant called Grace Chapel in Zeeland that was looking for a Senior Pastor. We sent our parents and my brother to check it out. We then began talks with the church and long story short we fell in love with the people we met and felt God was calling us. So we came to Grace Chapel Zeeland in 2017.
We have been at Grace for over 6 years now. God has been amazing! We have seen over hundreds of people give their lives to Jesus! Jesus has grown us from one service with few people to now a church with 3 locations in the United States and one in El Salvador. We have thousands who attend weekly and we are in the process of opening a new 162,000 square foot church building in Holland Michigan! And now we are in the process of planning the next steps to continue to foster the growth Jesus is sending to us.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. Learning how to listen to God’s leading in my life. 2. Learning how to follow God’s leading in my life and NOT mine.
3. Learning how to not pick offenses up.
My advice to others would be to really spend time with God so you can get to know him and how he speaks. That will pay endless dividends in your life. Learning to NOT pick-up offenses is life-altering. The reality is that one 1 person can choose to pickup an offense; and that one person is me. People can say whatever they want about us, but we can choose to not pickup the burdens they lay on us. We can instead choose to give the burden to God and when you do life gets so much easier and filled with JOY! Let God fight our battles!
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
I am getting my doctorate in Church Revitalization and Renewal because I do not want to see ANY church die. I would LOVE to hear from ANY church in the world that needs help and see how we could partner up to keep them alive and thriving. During my doctorate we have developed all kinds of content to help churches that we would LOVE to give to anyone for FREE and help them.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.familychurch.app
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FamilyChurchApp
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/85622812
