OCM Grace Church History

OCM Grace Church was founded in November, 1992, as a branch of Overseas Chinese Mission Main Church in Chinatown, New York City, to reach out to the Chinese community in North Jersey. Pastor Jonathan Cheng, the head pastor of Main Church from 1983-1988, had made it one of his missions to extend the reach of OCM by forming branch churches in outlying communities, and had previously established two other branch churches: Boon Church in Flushing, Queens, and Jireh Church in South Jersey. He also laid the groundwork for the eventual establishing of Grace Church by initiating a series of Bible studies in the homes of OCM members living in Bergen County. His successor, Pastor Dean DeCastro, continued this work of community building with the home Bible studies and eventually moved forward with plans to grow the community into a full branch church. On November 1, 1992, Grace Church held its first service utilizing rented space on the campus of Fairleigh Dickenson University. In September, 1994, Pastor Jerry Moy became the first full-time pastor of Grace Church. Shortly after, he was joined by Pastors Jen Jen Shu and David Moy to help shepherd the full congregation. Over the years, Grace Church increasingly felt the need to have a true home of its own and, after much trial and searching, finally found and purchased its current church building in Ridgefield Park from a former Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ridgefield Park, NJ. The Ridgefield Park Church opened its doors on July 7, 2007. Today the Grace Church congregation is being served by Pastor John Maxham.