The Sioux Falls Campus of Grace Church held its last worship service on Sunday, March 13, 2016. Rev. Arlene Jackson led worship in Sioux Falls. Jackson will return to Florida to serve the Florida Conference of The United Methodist Church.

Jackson posted this comment on Facebook: “This year has been an amazing experience for my family, the launch team, and me, and I am so glad that God allowed us this chance to bring his ministry of healing and recovery to South Dakota from Florida. Although the ministry did not ignite in the way we had hoped, we know that God's purposes have been fulfilled here, because God uses all things for His glory. God is good, all the time! Tonight was our last worship service, and next Sunday at 5 PM there will be a potluck barbecue to celebrate our ministry.”

The Sioux Falls Campus began worship in November as a joint collaboration between Grace Church in Florida and the Dakotas Conference. Jackson, who has family in the Sioux Falls area, was appointed as the first pastor.

Grace Church is recognized as having one of the largest and most effective recovery ministries in America with over 700 people involved in weekly recovery ministries. Rev. Jorge Acevedo is the lead pastor at Grace Church, a multi-site, United Methodist congregation in southwest Florida at Cape Coral, Fort Meyers—3 locations and Sarasota.

Rev. Acevedo wrote in a recent blog post, “After much prayer and conversation, the Sioux Falls campus of Grace Church is closing. The grand experiment to plant a campus of Grace Church outside of the state of the Florida never ignited. This campus was a joint effort between Grace Church and the Dakotas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.”

Grace Church in Sioux Falls focused on creating a recovery ministry. Worship was held on Sunday evenings at 33rd and Minnesota. The worship experience would begin with food, move to a worship service and concluded with fellowship. The search to find the right fit to focus on faith and recovery simply did not happen.

“Not every new church start is a success,” said Bishop Bruce R. Ough, Dakotas-Minnesota Area. “However, every new church start teaches us something about making new disciples and reaching diverse groups of people. New church initiatives must embrace challenges and failures. If not, we would never step out in faith, or take the risk of starting anything new. Fortunately, God is always faithful, and will continue to open doors for our new church development efforts."

Ben Ingebretson, Dakotas-Minnesota Area Director for New Church Development, had the following perspective. “We come away from the Grace Church plant experience with some added wisdom. First, we learn to discern early and ‘fail fast’. Church plants generally show their vitality signs early or not at all. Second we learn to delay a launch of weekly worship until there is significant energy in smaller groups. Those discipleship networks matter greatly in the early years of a church as they provide stability. Finally, perhaps we learned that Sunday night church in South Dakota is not easy to sell over the long haul. This wisdom is valuable as we look into the future following Christ in mission.”

The Dakotas Conference is on an intentional journey toward increasing the number of vital congregations effective in making and equipping new disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Starting new churches is part of the Journey Toward Vitality.