OUR HISTORY

 

The Abundant Grace Community Church started out as the International Baptist Church and was founded by missionaries sent out by the Southern Baptist Convention - International Mission Board, had its humble beginnings in late 1991 - early 1992 with a handful of attendants every Sunday morning at the home of missionaries Thomas and Patti Higginbotham and their two children, Kimberly and Alison.

 

From this location, a facility was rented at the Port de Plaisance resort hotel with a ministry focused on resort guests and “boaties”; members of the boating and yachting community which at the time of the Church’s establishment was more prolific than is presently the case.

 

In 1995, the Church once again moved from the resort location to the Simpson Bay Yacht Club. From this location it was necessary to eventually have two morning services in order to accommodate the expanding attendance.

 

With the establishment of the American University of the Caribbean (AUC) School of Medicine on the island of St. Maarten and the inauguration of its Cupecoy campus in 1998, Pastor Higginbotham offered to conduct Sunday morning worship services to the faculty and student body of the AUC Community Church. Consequently, the Sunday morning services of the St. Maarten International Baptist Church were combined with that of the AUC Community Church with all attendants meeting in a lecture hall on the campus of the AUC. All other meetings (Ladies, Men’s, Young People, Prayer, Bible Study, etc.) continued to be held at the Simpson Bay Yacht Club facility.

 

In 2000, the Southern Baptist Convention - International Mission Board (SBC - IMB) implemented a change in its missionary efforts, preferring to concentrate on reaching language groups, rather than continuing to support English language based missionary work, and the Higginbothams were recalled.

 

Pastor Higginbotham, preferring to pursue further doctoral work in the ministry, opted to pursue this goal leaving the work in the summer of 2001. For a period of two years, 2001 – 2003, the Church was led through a transitional period by SBC - IMB missionary Mark Houghton, whose task it was to organize the Church to prepare it to function independently.

 

From this effort, the Church established itself as a foundation under local leadership and drafted and approved its Constitution along the guidelines established by the Southern Baptist “Baptist Faith and Message”.

 

In early 2004, after an extensive search, Mr. James Dowling (pensioned law enforcement officer and graduate of Golden Gate Theological Seminary) from Granite Bay, California accepted to serve the Church as its Senior Pastor. Mr. Dowling, unfortunately, had to return to California for medical reasons in December 2004.

 

By means of in-house pulpit supply, the messages continued to be delivered to the congregation since Mr. Dowling’s departure. Regularly held services at the AUC facility were discontinued in late March of 2005.

 

The Church then concentrated its activities at the Simpson Bay Yacht Club location before moving to a new location in 2005.

 

While at the AUC facility average attendance was over 120 on any given Sunday morning. At the current facility, average attendance is about 60.

 

Coming up: the recent history of the church, now called Abundant Grace Community Church.