Leadership

Leaders are important for the growth, education, welfare, fellowship, and general life of the church.  Leaders are selected by the members of our congregation at the Annual Business Meeting.  The leadership of Grace Community Church is made up with the Pastor, an Elder Team and Church Council.

Ian Burbridge - Pastor 

Pastor Ian, who is from England, and his wife, Linda, who comes from Indiana, have been married for 48 years and have been worshipping with Grace Community Church for the past 14 years when visiting Englewood from the UK.  Ian has pastored a church in England and now that one of their daughters, Kate, lives in Venice with her husband and two young children, he and Linda are spending much more time here.  

Ian joined Pastor John in co-pastoring Grace Community Church in January 2022.  From July 1, 2025, Ian became the full time pastor of Grace. 

Ian has a BA in Theology (Summa Cum Laude) from Florida Bible College and an MDiv from Luther Rice Seminary.  His passion is to make the Gospel of Jesus Christ clear for unbelievers and helping those who have trusted Christ as Savior to grow in their faith and to help them understand that, ‘all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work’ from II Timothy 3:16-17 and to ‘be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have’ from I Peter 3:15.  Ian and Linda have two daughters, Emma with her husband, Paul, and their three sons, Robin, Isaac and Luke and Kate with her husband, Dominic, and their two daughters, Chloe and Lucy.

Darrell Decker – Elder

Darrell has a wonderfully full history of serving our Lord and Savior. He and his family served in the wild jungles of Colombia, S.A. for many years where they raised their four children. Due to health issues they returned to the States and continued as missionaries working with youth and being an interim Pastor in rural Michigan. When he and his wife, Nada, retired to Florida the Lord prompted them to continue their work with young people and the opened a “Teen Center” in North Port. Again physical ailments caused by exposure to chemicals while in the military forced him to retire, again. They later joined Grace Community Church and he accepted the call to be an Elder. He has worked in many different capacities, especially as the Pastor’s fill-in for visitation, a role he very much enjoys.