MARIETTA - On Sunday, GracePointe Marietta church will mark its first anniversary as a congregation combined from two smaller churches. Celebration Day events will begin at 11 a.m. at the church's new home at 505 Atlanta Street, near East Dixie Avenue.

GracePointe was born in a merger of Roselane Baptist Church and Crestview Baptist Church. The two had existed for more than 100 years, worshiping only three miles apart. But the aging of both congregations led to a decline in membership, and about three years ago, Roselane leaders approached Crestview with the idea for a merger. At that time, Roselane had about 50 members, and Crestview had about 80.

"As the neighborhood was changing a lot, we were not being able to get new members," said Brenda Meeks of Marietta, who was a 58-year member of Roselane. "Older people were dying, and it just seemed to be in a steady decline."

In October 2008, the two congregations celebrated their first Sunday as one. Services took place at Roselane, while the Crestview building was renovated into a new, permanent home for GracePointe. Not only did it take time to renovate the building, but it also was a journey to transform hearts and minds, opening them up to new ways of worshipping, said Greg Harwood, who had become pastor of Crestview in 2007, and is now GracePointe's leader.

Harwood works as the human resources group director for Coca-Cola in Atlanta and has experience with "change strategies."

"We basically employed the change strategies that I would use downtown," he said. "But in a spiritual sense, it's taking people through creating endings, walking them through what we call the 'neutral zone,' and then building up to new beginnings. It's that new beginning that we're celebrating Sunday."

The neutral zone is what Harwood described as a time in which one doesn't know what is going to happen next.

"You don't have any answers for anything," he said. "It's in that neutral zone where God does his best work, because you're helpless. You have let go of the old stuff, and you're out there - like what one consultant calls on the trapeze and you've let go of one and you haven't yet grabbed the other one. So you're hanging there suspended with nothing to help you, and you call upon God. And that's what we spent that time doing over at the Roselane facility."

Two of the biggest issues members had during the transition were altering some worship practices and shedding the old church names, Harwood said.

In naming the new church, the word "grace" was chosen because it signifies acceptance and openness. "Someone in one meeting mentioned point of grace and then that led to something else, and we ended up with GracePointe," Harwood said.

Although a few members decided to leave, Harwood said the new church has attracted new members. Grace McBrayer of Marietta, who had been a member of Crestview for 50 years, was on the committee working to unite the congregations, and said GracePointe is "like a blended family."

To increase membership and attract younger worshippers, Harwood said he wanted GracePointe to have a contemporary worship service, which is reflected in a $240,000 renovation. The traditional podium surrounded by a prayer rail has been replaced with a more hip, minimalist-inspired pulpit. Screens were installed above the pulpit to project song lyrics.

Allan Riley is the worship director at GracePointe.

"Every church right now is facing two choices. They can change or they can die," Riley said. "(GracePointe) said they wanted to be multicultural, multigenerational and so to do that, we had to design a worship style where people of different generations and cultures could all find something for them."