Prominent apologist Justin Peters announces he's leading new church plant
Apologist Justin Peters announced this week that he'll be leading a new church plant in Montana, with several well-known evangelical leaders serving as elder advisers.
In a statement posted on X Monday, Peters announced that he's now the pastor of Grace & Truth Community Church in Laurel, Montana: “About five months ago, a small group of believers saw a need to plant a doctrinally sound church west of Billings, MT. Grace & Truth Community Church was born to meet this need. It is my honor to serve as pastor.”
Peters also shared a link to the church’s website, which outlines the congregation’s history, mission and theological convictions. According to the website, the church first began meeting on Dec. 28, 2025, and currently holds services inside a furniture store.
“GTCC is committed to worshiping God in spirit and truth (John 4:23),” the website states. “A true church is committed to shepherding and feeding the sheep (John 21:15-17) through expository preaching. This is God’s ordained means for the saints — including the pastors/elders — to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).”
While Peters currently serves as the church’s only pastor and elder, several prominent conservative Christian figures have joined the ministry as elder advisers, including Phil Johnson of Grace to You, Bible scholar Jim Osman and Mike Riccardi of Grace Community Church.
As explained in his biography on the church’s website, Peters has a Master of Divinity and a Master of Theology from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, and previously attended Kootenai Community Church in Sandpoint, Idaho.
Peters is best known for leading Justin Peters Ministries, which describes itself as a “worldwide expository preaching and teaching ministry.” Peters regularly travels throughout the country and internationally to speak at churches and conferences, with upcoming appearances scheduled in Ireland, Wyoming and Panama City Beach, Florida.
Peters has emerged as an outspoken critic of Paula White-Cain, head of the White House Faith Office. In 2019, when some Evangelical pastors endorsed her book, Peters described White as “both unqualified and disqualified on every imaginable level to be in any kind of ministry.”
In 2024, as he responded to an insistence from megachurch Pastor Jack Graham that pastors and Christian leaders who encourage their congregations not to vote have “lost all credibility,” Peters remarked, “If you are a pastor who repeatedly has endorsed and promoted Paula White, you have lost all credibility not only in the (true) church but also before a watching world and the watching Christ.”
Last year, after Trump quipped that he could earn a place in Heaven for ending the Russia-Ukraine war, Peters reacted by saying, “How sad that after being exposed for many years to some of the most high-profile ‘Christian’ preachers in the country, Mr. Trump still does not understand the Gospel.”
“All these ‘prophets’ like Paula White, Kenneth Copeland, Franklin Jentezen [sic], Chea Ahn, etc. giddy over their access to the White House (and men who know these to be false prophets but choose to endorse them or at least turn a willful blind eye to them — I’m looking at you Robert Jeffress and Jack Graham and others) have done Mr. Trump no favors whatsoever,” Peters added.
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
