Grace Capital City

Our goal is to purchase, restore, and revive the building that served as President Teddy Roosevelt's spiritual home during his Presidency and Vice Presidency. We believe the President's legacy would be well honored by restoring his church and filling it with the next generation of people living out their faith in action and service.

Would you join us in saving President Teddy Roosevelt's church?

Throughout the years of his Presidency, every Sunday, President Roosevelt was known to walk from the White House to attend service at Grace Reformed Church - a place he helped build, lay the cornerstone for, and by all accounts, found a real spiritual home within. President Roosevelt was a financial contributor and regular attender of the church. But even more importantly, it seems the church played an important role in shaping the spiritual life and health of the President.

In Benjamin Wetzell’s account, Spiritual Lives; Theodore Roosevelt, the President is quoted as saying about his involvement at Grace Reformed: "After a week of perplexing problems and in heated contests, it does so rest my soul to come into the house of the Lord and worship and to sing and mean it, the ‘Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty’.” In a letter to Grace Reformed’s minister, President Roosevelt wrote, “When I leave Washington DC, I shall regret few things more than leaving your church.”

After closing its doors in 2018, Grace Reformed Church has recently come on the market and is at risk of going the way of many of the historic churches of DC and being turned into apartments or condos. We believe the loss of this church would be a real tragedy for the legacy and memory of the President.

As a young and growing church, we at Grace Capital City (GCC) seek to buy the Grace Reformed Church building and make it the permanent home for our dynamic congregation. We're aiming to raise 20% of what we believe will be the overall cost to purchase and restore the church through this public campaign.

Conservation and environmental stewardship are one of GCC’s core ministry areas. We have a mission to mobilize the next generation of Christians to engage in environmental stewardship as an expression and outpouring of their faith. Carrying out this vision in President Roosevelt’s spiritual home in DC is a true embodiment of “Living History.” In our hands, Grace Reformed would remain an active church, honoring TR’s legacy and the history of the building.

Would you join us in saving the spiritual home of President Teddy Roosevelt?