Denise is the lead pastor at Maple Avenue Ministries, a multi-ethnic, multi- cultural and multi-generational congregation in Holland, Michigan. Maple Avenue Ministries is the first union church of the Reformed Church in America and the Christian Reformed Church.
Rev. Grier graduated from Shaw University in Raleigh, NC where she received a BA in psychology. After functioning as a social worker for many years she went on to become the first African American female to graduate from Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan with a Master of Divinity degree. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Ministry. She’s studying the ways in which the American church has created systems of apartheid with its outreach practices in order to develop an embracing model of ministry based on the gospel of John.
Denise has been the wife of CJ Kingdom Grier for 17 years, the biological mother to Gezelle, 13 and Christopher, 10, Seventeen other foster and surrogate children, and now grandchildren, have shared her life and home.
