Since there were no RCA congregations in Washington, he chose Grace Reformed Church as a church similar liturgically and theologically to Dutch Calvinism.

Roosevelt began attending Grace Reformed Church soon after his arrival in Washington, D.C. in 1901 as vice-president of the United States. Reverend Dr. J.M. Schick, Pastor of Grace Reformed Church between 1900 and 1913, invited Roosevelt to make the church his home. Roosevelt did so and attended church regularly during his eight years in Washington.

The President often walked from the White House to attend Sunday morning worship services at Grace Church. The President was usually accompanied by two Secret Service men, and often with family members or friends. He regularly had flowers sent to adorn the altar from the greenhouse at the White House and was a faithful communicant between 1901 and 1909. Roosevelt is reported to have taken part in all the service, singing every hymn, and listening to the sermon, even jotting down notes on the sermons. His regular pew is still in the church. Roosevelt’s appreciation for the spiritual support that he received from his church attendance was communicated by letters he sent to the pastor as well as the gifts of two bishop chairs and his portrait to the church.

President Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of Grace Reformed Church on July 1, 1902, and spoke at its dedication on June 7, 1903. As his speech at the dedication ceremony of Grace Reformed Church concluded:

“This church is consecrated here to-day to duty and service, to the worship of the Creator, and to an earnest effort on our part so to shape our lives among ourselves and in relation to the outside world that we may feel that we have done our part in ringing a little nearer the day when there shall be on this earth a genuine brotherhood of man.”

President Dwight D. Eisenhower attended a special Sunday morning worship service at Grace Reformed Church in October 1958 that commemorated the 100th birthday anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt.

He ministered on the Pennsylvania frontier and at the hub of our new Federal government, fashionable New York City. His text on moral philosophy outlined America’s new civil religion, but it denounced slavery as an unconscionable evil before most Americans had recognized it as a moral issue, at all. Nonetheless, Johan Gros has received little more than a footnote from historians, whether Christian or secular. He was a great man in an age of politically greater men.