Norman Bagby prepared this reflection on the formation of Grace Presbytery as we praise God for his faithfulness in our 50th year.

Yet, what is happening in Ocean Springs is not our story.  It began over ten years ago, when people in local churches here on the coast began to pray for a gospel-centered ministry to the lost in Ocean Springs.  And then that took flight when Phillip and Lori Sealy answered the call and moved their family to Ocean Springs to begin building an evangelistic based church plant here.  That is an amazing part of the story, for even when Phillip got sick with the cancer that would eventually take his life, when it surely would have been easier for them to pack up and go back home — Phillip and Lori so believed in the story God is telling in Ocean Spring that they doubled down — working faithfully and frantically, giving themselves to see the gospel come to this town.  They believed in that so much that Phillip is even buried here, as a way of “claiming this territory” for Jesus Christ.  But, in Lori’s own words that she shared with me recently, “Our story isn’t ours, but God’s.  And may it be used for His glory and for the gathering in of sinful, suffering sheep in need of a saving, sanctifying Savior!”

August 2022 Update from the Hope Presbyterian Church Plant in Ocean Springs, MS.