Our Story
Jenni here. Brett and I have homeschooled six children since our oldest was in Pre-K. Our approach to education has been to establish in ourselves and our children an understanding of the Scriptural principles – not laws – upon which to build our lives, and to develop the faith, character, knowledge, and skills to live them out every day as we fulfill the Great Commission (Mat. 28:19-20).Grace, Truth, and Love exists to communicate the Grace God extends to us through the Truth of His Word (John 1:17), enabling us to live out the law of Love (Mat. 22:37-40; Rom. 13:8-10).
We are Brett & Jenni Bartlett. Grace, Truth & Love is the fruit of our love for the God of the Bible, the Ultimate Author, who has inspired us to dig deeply into His word and mine it for priceless treasure: truth and life. We would love to encourage you in your faith in God’s faithfulness to effectively communicate, preserve, and fulfill His unfailing Word.
Brett’s Testimony
Brett is working on his testimony. I look forward to sharing that with you when it’s ready.
Jenni’s Testimony
A Florida native, I attended church as a child, but I never understood how the stories of the Bible related to my life as I was growing up. I lived only for myself and the immediate present until I came to a saving faith in Jesus Christ through a crisis pregnancy. I had previously had an abortion and was seeking another one (!) when God broke my heart for my baby and stopped me in my tracks. I realized every path of my life always led to a dead end, and my only hope of being a decent mother was to surrender my life to Jesus Christ. After delivering me from my destructive lifestyle, God blessed me with a beautiful baby girl and a voracious appetite for Scripture. I began attending Beaches Christian Fellowship in Jacksonville Beach, where I was taught how to live out the Bible by the late Pastor Gene Eberhardy, whose heartbeat it was to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3, ESV).
Alpha Women’s Center
It was a passion for truth that fueled my desire to reach out to others facing a crisis pregnancy: both the truth about the unborn and the truth about God’s plan of salvation for even the “worst” sinner. I wanted other women, especially those who were considering abortion, to understand the genuine love of God that I had experienced, and I wanted to equip them with the resources to support a choice for life. I wanted them to know they had a legal choice to abort, but it should be an informed choice, not the lies and coercion I experienced as a shortsighted and unsupported teenager. I wanted to impart to others, who were facing that tough decision, the truth about the unborn baby they were carrying: that it’s not a blob of tissue – a lie I had believed – but a real, separate person with a beating heart (weeks before most even know they’re pregnant). The baby has a completely different blood type and genetic code. It’s not the woman’s body; it’s another human being with a God-given right to live. Life begins at conception.
I deeply regret my abortion, but I have found healing and forgiveness through Jesus Christ, and that forgiveness is available to all who trust in Him.
I obtained training to volunteer at a pregnancy crisis ministry in Jacksonville, but during this time, my aunt and uncle introduced me to Brett, and when we got married I moved an hour south to Palm Coast, which wasn’t even on the map yet in 1995. Someone said to me in the richest Lawn Gisland (Long Island) accent I had ever heard, “Welcome to the world, honey. This is Palm Coast. You’re not going to find what you’re looking for here.” True. Not even a pregnancy crisis center.
I served briefly through a ministry in another county, but God laid on my heart the need for a pregnancy crisis ministry in Flagler County. By God’s direction, provision, and grace, and through the prayers, support and encouragement of many loving believers, Alpha Women’s Center opened its doors as Alpha Pregnancy Center in August of 1999. I resigned from the Board of Directors in 2003, but the ministry continues to thrive in an area of sustained, even explosive, population growth. Please contact Alpha directly if you’re in our local area and you need help, or if you would like to support the ministry. It is a faith-based 501c-3 nonprofit organization, so donations are tax-deductible.
Biblical Languages
My journey into Biblical Languages began while I was preparing a homeschool lesson on the Inerrancy of Scripture. During my research, I discovered that some of our English translations of the Old Testament were following a Hebrew tradition, and some were following the Greek (often called the Septuagint – Latin for the “seventy” or so Jewish scholars who translated it; notated as LXX). In the few places where the two languages differed, I was deeply burdened to know which was correct, so I went back to school to study the languages of the Bible. Having completed most of the coursework for a Master of Arts in Biblical Languages and Culture, I can now confidently say that there is a mountain of evidence that God has preserved His Word. In fact, the New Testament is bullet-proof. For a great synopsis of that evidence, I would encourage you to watch a movie called Fragments of Truth (2018), featuring the esteemed Craig A. Evans, scholar extraordinaire.
That said, there are some complexities in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament that primarily affect chronology. It’s not a different story line, just a different timeline. Egyptian history is literally set in stone, especially where we have evidence of correspondence with other nations, so when Biblical chronology contradicts those synchronisms, the Bible is assumed to be in error. However, the LXX resolves many chronology problems without compromising the truth. God’s words were preserved in Greek by Jewish scholars nearly three centuries before Jesus was born, and the Eastern Church has continued to use the Greek Old Testament for almost 2,000 years. New Testament authors quoted the Greek Old Testament more than the Hebrew. First-century Jewish historians used the Greek chronology, not the Hebrew. The Greek deserves the careful attention of both Jews and Christians who esteem the Bible as holy and sincerely desire to know what it says. God spoke Greek!
Biblical Archaeology
Trusting the Bible doesn’t require blind faith. There is so much material evidence coming out of the ground in excavations in Israel and other Biblical locations that agrees exactly with what the Scripture says! The Bible isn’t just another collection of myths and poetry; the texts have already shed light on many Biblical sites because of the verisimilitude – the details that match between what the Bible says and what we actually find in the ground: evidence of real people, places and events. We don’t even have to make it up! As I continue to pursue the field of Biblical History and Archaeology, I hope to share many of those findings here on this site, out in our local community, and to the ends of the earth, should the Lord bless my efforts. I covet your prayers for His favor and blessing, and I pray that you are blessed as well.
Brett and I would both love to hear from you!
