The church will have a 1,600-seat sanctuary, a gymnasium, a cafe and special areas for children and teenagers. The 110,000-square-foot facility is situated on 60 acres of land.

Grace Presbyterian Church is moving to a new facility on the growing northwest suburbs of Peoria, IL. They will conduct the first public services there on Sunday, October 12.

The new building, in planning since 2007, is located at 8607 N. State Route 91, is conveniently located a short distance from Exit 6 of I-474, the Peoria perimeter road, about a mile north of The Shoppes at Grand Prairie.

The congregation started in 1862 in a railroad car by the Illinois River. The first permanent location was at Wayne Street and Madison Avenue, followed by the location at Knoxville and Forrest Hill avenues.

In 1982 – under the leadership of Senior Pastor Bruce Dunn, who served the congregation from 1951 to 1991 – the congregation left the UPCUSA. The pastor’s immediately joined Tennessee Valley Presbytery of the PCA in January of that year and the church came in at the formation of Northern Illinois Presbytery in July

Upon Dunn’s retirement, he was followed by John Queen who served from 1993 to 2000. He was followed by the current senior pastor, Ben Johnston, who came to Peoria from an Evangelical Free church in Texas. He had served on the staff with John Queen for seven years. All three of these men were trained in Baptist-related seminaries (Dunn at Northern Baptist in Chicago, Queen and Johnston at Dallas Seminary) but later moved into Presbyterian connections.

The move was brought about by a lack of seating, parking and ministry space at the current location. They plan to continue have two morning worship services, at 8:30 and 11:00, expecting the current average attendance of nearly 1,500 to expand in the new facility.

The church will have a 1,600-seat sanctuary, a gymnasium, a cafe and special areas for children and teenagers. The 110,000-square-foot facility is situated on 60 acres of land.

The sanctuary is designed with special lighting to enhance the church’s weekly TV ministry, which runs each Sunday at 9:00AM and 7:00PM on WEEK-TV and WBNH-FM

Stephanie Hardiman, Peoria Journal Star, contributed to this story.