Gracepoint Gospel Fellowship Celebrates 40th Birthday

Matt Poterbin's first trip to Gracepoint Gospel Fellowship was supposed to be his only.

Poterbin, in New York from Seattle visiting family, stopped by one day just to rule the church out as a possible workplace. Instead, he returned to Seattle, packed up his car and drove to New York to be the church's youth minister, a position he still holds 13 years later.

Leading up to that, Poterbin's resume ended up on the desk of Gracepoint's pastor, Carl Johnson, who contacted Poterbin about joining the Gracepoint staff.

"We talked about it for a year, and the first six months I flat out said no," Poterbin said.

But Poterbin and his wife, Jennifer, were visiting family in Long Island when they decided to check out the church just so they could rule it out as a possible destination and put it behind them.

"The church is the reason we moved," he said, adding that it was the love and warmth he felt at Gracepoint that led to his decision.

Poterbin told part of that story Friday night at Gracepoint when the church played host to its own 40th anniversary party. Hundreds of people filled the church's multi-purpose room that also hosts its weekly services, which average upwards of a thousand people.

"This is about celebrating what God has done here," said Pastor Daniel Johnson, the assistant pastor of outreach and Evangelism.

Johnson tried to put into place just how long Gracepoint has been around.

"When this place opened, the New York Jets had just won the Super Bowl the previous year. Since then they've been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, but this might just be the year they get the promised land," he said. "Just had to throw that out there."

Even before they had a building, Helen and Kaare Titland would have people over for Bible studies, then in 1970, Titland decided he needed to purchase land to build a church on. He bought the land on New Hempsted Road where the church is currently located for $45,000.

When the church first opened in October of 1970, Millie and Willie Abrahamsen, of Suffern, were at the first ever service and still go to Gracepoint today.

"It's all of the people here that keep us coming back," Willie Abrahamsen said. "It's like a big family."

Millie Abrahamsen said at the first service, there were six families there.

"We're a small group that has just multiplied," she said.

Each person in attendance Friday night was given a pamphlet highlighting some of the church's history, where it also has the church's attendance at the start of each decade. In 1970, it was roughly 25, then about 150 in 1980, about 300 in 1990, about 600 in 2000 and about 1,200 this year.

The church's building has also undergone a bunch of changes, first starting out as a firehouse before being rebuilt in 1974 for $300,000. Then the building was expanded again 1991 due to increased attendance, which also led to a two-service schedule on Sundays. And the most recently building was completed in July 2008, an $8 million rebuild.

But if there has been at least one constant at Gracepoint throughout its 40 years no matter what building the congregation meets in, it's a sense of family.

"There's so much love here," said Corinne Ambrosino, the business administrator. "Gracepoint is love, it's family. We just have a wonderful relationship with God."

When Ambrosino's husband, Al, died three years ago, it was a time she said she was very thankful to have the friends she's made at Gracepoint.

"When Al passed away, my life ended, but all of you kept my life going," she said during a portion of the program toward the end of the night when people were allowed on stage to talk about their relationships to Gracepoint.

Another person who got up to speak during that portion of the evening was New City's Vernon Grant, who talked about how he moved to Rockland from Brooklyn and didn't have a regular church. His next door neighbor went to Gracepoint and told him to go one Sunday. Grant said he went once and didn't go back for a few weeks, although did fill out an information card. A pastor from Gracepoint called his house to talk a little, and he still didn't go back. Then one day he went home and on his front door was a card from the same pastor he stopped by to talk, but nobody was home.

"I don't know of any of places that would do that," he said. "That's when I knew they were serious here."

He also spoke about the church's diversity.

"We are all from many backgrounds, cultures and languages," he said. "It's the love that keeps me here."

The program started with some welcoming remarks by Pastor Floyd Nicholson around 6:30 p.m., and after many more speakers, musical performances and a meal, most people didn't leave until after 11 p.m. After Nicholson, Michel Sabba, an elder at the church, got up to speak. Toward the end of his speech, he held up a sheet of paper from the church's 20-year anniversary where Johnson wrote the church was going to continue "pressing on to new heights."

The Gracepoint Gospel Fellowship Worship Choir performed a short set, singing "You Are Worthy of my Praise," "This Is Your House" and "To Him Who Sits on the Throne." At one point, Titland even got up to sing a song, and at various points of the evening, the choir was joined by other singers, including Tina Scala and Angela Chan.

Chan talked about her confusion about Christianity early on, originally thinking it was cult-like, and the people stood on the sidewalk in white robs giving out flowers.

"I had Christianity confused with Hare Krishna," she said.

She said she went to an event and was drawn to one room with music coming from it. When she went to the room, she saw hundreds of people worshipping and was sold. The song they were singing was "To God Be The Glory," which she sang Friday night. She also said she's been happy to find another family in her time at Gracepoint.

"It isn't about us," she said. "It's about what God has done."

There was also a video shown with bits of the Titlands talking combined with pictures over the years at Gracepoint. Many of them featured Johnson, who has been a pastor there for 33 years. Ambrosino said Gracepoint has been lucky because pastors don't typically stay at one church for so long. Johnson, however, has been more than happy to stay with Gracepoint.

"It's been a great place to minister," he said. "We have great people here, with spirit, worship and that hunger for God."