“He told me, ‘I’m not going to be your first parishioner,’ ” Grigsby said with a chuckle.
New Visions A.M.E. Church will hold its first service at 4 p.m. Sunday, March 28, at the Wayne High School auditorium. After that Palm Sunday celebration, the church will move its start time to 3 p.m. and relocate to the Aldersgate United Methodist Church sanctuary at 5464 Troy Pike in Huber Heights.
After originally targeting Kettering, Grigsby was persuaded by Donoher to consider Huber Heights because of its racial diversity.
“I’m not starting a black church. I’m starting a multicolored church,” said Grigsby, whose nephew, Chris Wright, is a current basketball star at UD. “I love everybody, and everybody needs the Lord.”
Grigsby, 60, had a rocky journey through life before embracing Christianity, including financial hardship and a failed marriage. A full-time health and phys-ed teacher at Meadowdale High School, he’s been preaching at a church in Bellefontaine for the last 12 years and plans to stay in the pulpit there for at least a couple more.
“The joy I’m getting, I don’t deserve,” he said. “I’m a sinner saved by grace, and I want to make that happen for other people.”
Donoher is moved by Grigsby’s devotion to lost souls.
“J.D. is a missionary. His whole life, he’s just trying to serve the Lord every day,” Donoher said. “That’s all he’s thinking about. He does good work. If he gets this church going, he’ll do more good work.
“He’s had a lot of people at UD who have been there for him. The Frericks brothers really helped him a lot when he got out of school. By his own admission, he wasn’t always headed in the right direction, and people up in education really worked with him. Big Jim Paxson has been a great friend, too. ... He’s just one of our treasures.”
Contact this reporter at
(937) 225-2125 or
dharris@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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