Great Commission Community Church

My family belonged to a great church in Chicago. It took us about a year to find and decide to join that church. So we were dreading having to start that process all over again when we moved to Rockville. After a year and a half of sporadically checking out at least 7 different churches in Maryland, we heard about GCCC expanding to Tysons. Initially, we thought it would be too far since we’re coming from around Shady Grove Hospital. But taking into account the lack of traffic on Sunday mornings, it only takes us about 20 – 25 minutes.
Why was it so difficult for us to decide on a church?
My husband is a non-​believer who’s curious to learn more about Christianity. We needed Pastors that we can relate to, connect with, be inspired by, and most importantly, be people who would make us WANT to go to church and listen to them every… single…Sunday. Pastor Steve, Pastor Sam, and Pastor Phillip are all quirky, funny, and relatable in their own ways. They have been so welcoming to all the newcomers to the Tysons location and you can really see the heart that they have for God, His people, and the mission of the church.
We have 3 young kids (age 5 and under) so we needed a great children’s program for each of their age groups. Believe me, there isn’t a shortage of kids at this church. But despite the volume and what I would have expected to be complete chaos, the Children’s Ministry has everything under control. Security is very important to them and they have a great system in place where every child is accounted for and no child would be released to someone who shouldn’t be picking them up. My two older ones will have their days of not wanting to be separated from Mom and Dad, but they come out of their classrooms every Sunday with a big smile and so excited to share with us what they did in class that day. It’s exciting to see that our kids would be growing up and becoming (hopefully) lifelong friends with the kids in their classes.
My husband and I wanted to meet people who are in the same life stage as we are, families trying to survive the early years of child-​rearing, and we have met so many great families with kids the same age as ours. But I realized that it’s important to get to know the other folks with older kids too (they will be our mentors on how to handle and teach our kids as they grow older) as well as the younger/​single folks (who plan fun activities outside of church where we can pretend we’re young again.) I’ve never been apart of a church where there are so many official and unofficial events for people to bond outside of church. I can see that this is a place where your friends become your family, and we want to be a part of that.
Now that we have become regular attenders, we are really enjoying getting to know everyone on a deeper level and opening our palates up to all the different restaurants in VA that we Marylanders never venture out to try! And I know we’ll never have to dine alone because the people at this church love to eat!

Been at this church from the beginning… There are definite unique things about the church so I’d point them out.
1. The church is mostly transplants from other areas. I think that helps to enfold new comers. There’s really no «old timers», so everyone feels like they can fit right in even though they just moved to the area.
2. There’s strong ownership of the church by the members and regular attenders. The standard ⁸⁰⁄₂₀ rule doesn’t apply. More than 50 percent are involved in some sort of ministry… And many in multiple ministries.
3. The leadership truly demonstrate humble servanthood. You will see them in serving in children ministry, moving equipment, setting up each service week and week out …
4. The church still feels ‘small’ and where newcomers can still find space and place.
5. There are strong desire and practice to serve the community…
6. Of course, there are plenty of fun folks!