History of Grace OPC

Grace Church began its existence as an Orthodox Presbyterian church on June 15, 1978. Its history, however, looks back to June of 1963. Duane Edward Spencer was then a Methodist minister resigning from the Methodist Church because of its theological liberalism. Other members left with him and together they established Grace Bible Church of San Antonio. The first worship services were held in the ballroom of a Ramada Inn.

The church steadily grew and a seven-acre tract of land was purchased near the intersection of Interstate 10 and NW Loop 410. Military barracks buildings were moved onto the property and later remodeled into an attractive complex for church use. Eventually proceeds from the sale of this property would fund construction of the present church facilities at Interstate 10 and Utex Blvd.

Spencer was a popular figure on the Bible conference circuit and developed an international radio ministry. His method of preaching and teaching centered on what he called "key words of Scripture." This involved studying individual words of the Bible, in their original languages, as a means of interpreting Scripture. The result was a rediscovery of the truths of the Bible as taught by the Protestant Reformers.

Ultimately Spencer became convinced that the Reformation was a watershed in church history and that the faith of the Reformers (i.e., Reformed Theology) was solidly based on the word of God. In 1977 the congregation of Grace Bible, after investigating Reformed churches with which to unite, applied for membership in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

It should be noted that Spencer created controversy in the mid-1970's preaching from the Scriptures concerning election and predestination. In most churches these doctrines were either vilified or suppressed. The English reformer John Bradford once wrote, "Let a man go to the grammar school of faith and repentance before he goes to the university of election and predestination." For many, Duane Spencer opened the door to that "university."

Duane Spencer died on December 28, 1981. He was succeeded in the ministry by Jack Peterson, who was Grace's pastor for more than 20 years before being succeeded by our current pastor, Nathan Hornfeld.

This Week in Orthodox Presbyterian History

July 28

J. Gresham Machen

On July 28, 1881, J. Gresham Machen was born in Baltimore, Maryland.

The second of three sons born to Arthur Webster Machen and Mary Gresham Machen, Gresham was raised in an affluent Southern Presbyterian home, and his family attended Franklin Street Presbyterian Church, an influential Old School congregation. His upbringing nurtured him less in the “sentimental variety associated with Victorian Protestantism” than in “older forms of Protestant piety " the Bible, the Westminster Catechism, and Pilgrim's Progress,” according to biographer D.G. Hart. Machen's resistance to moralism would prompt his initial reluctance to enter the ministry after his education at Johns Hopkins University and Princeton Seminary. Eventually, his theological and cultural viewpoints would lead him to reject both theological modernism that he would condemn in Christianity and Liberalism and the “sickly interdenominationalism” of Protestant fundamentalism.

- John Muether