Dear friends, 

I would like to welcome you to the G.L.O.W. youth ministry web page. My name is Joel Pace and I am the youth pastor here at Freedom Fellowship Church in Dale City Virginia. My wife Ann and I would like to share our hearts for the youth ministry of this church and also for the County of Prince William.

G.L.O.W. stands for…Generating Light in Our World, and that is what we are endeavoring to do as we fall more in love with Jesus. The vision of G.L.O.W. is…To develop and train a generation of youth to be on fire for Jesus Christ, and become affective disciples who have unleashed the destiny and calling in their lives to change the very World around them.

I believe that through “Spirit Filled” acts of service; regular praise and worship meetings; Bible studies, and fun activities we will watch this generation of teenagers unfold the plan that God has for their lives. The groups of young people that gather here at G.L.O.W. week after week are being radically changed by the power of God. I myself have been raised in church my whole life, but did not realize how awesome my God was until I had a personal experience for myself. Just as a side note, if you are struggling with your teenager and not feeling like they truly understand what it is to have a personal relationship with Jesus, continue to pray that they would experience the presence and power of God for themselves and not simply through a youth pastor or even yourself (it is God and God alone who changes people, not us).

As I was finishing up my senior year of high school I realized that it was time to make some serious adjustments to my life. Wrestling was the biggest part of my life growing up, so it was a difficult decision to lay it completely down when the Lord spoke to me. I realized that my identity was not based upon what I did but who I was, and that was a child and follower of God. After high school I decided to take a year off (all the while I continued to serve as a leader in the youth ministry that I had grown up in) to pray about where and what I felt like God was telling me to go and do. After much prayer and fasting I decided that I was going to attend Rhema Bible College. While attending Rhema, the Lord spoke to me about leading a change in this generation of teenagers. I graduated Rhema as a youth ministry major and was still unclear about where and when God wanted me to go. My adventures lead me right back to the place that I started (Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania). As I returned to my home town I could not help but feel like I took one step forward and ten steps back. I spent the next three years praying and seeking the Lord for direction. The whole time that I was waiting on the Lord, He told me to continue serving faithfully in the place that I was currently at. After the third year of waiting on the Lord, God had opened up the door for me to youth pastor at Freedom Fellowship Church.

God has been faithful in the past, continues to faithful in the present and will always be faithful in the future.

My beautiful wife and I have a passion to see the strong holds of the enemy broken in the lives of every single teenager that comes through our doors! Continue to pray for this radical generation of “World Changers” as we seek the face of God!