Our Mission
Every community has its center. For the community that calls FBCW home, our center is God. It is our desire to love God with our total being. This love drives how we live, interact, and love those around us. This love compels us to share the amazing news of God’s gospel with those in our lives and across God’s amazing globe. We are not a perfect community, but we are one that has committed to LOVE GOD, LOVE PEOPLE, and LOVE MORE PEOPLE to the best of our individual and collective abilities. We would love to have you join us on this mission.
Our Beliefs
We believe that the Scriptures of both the Old and New Testaments are verbally inspired of God, error free in the original writings, and the supreme authority of faith and practice for the believer in Jesus Christ.
We believe there is but one living God eternally existing in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – all functioning harmoniously with respect to God’s creation and mankind. (Deuteronomy 6:4)
We believe God, the Father, orders and directs all things according to his own purpose, pleasure, and grace. He has decreed all things come to pass for his own glory. He graciously involves himself in the affairs of men, hears and answers prayer, and saves from sin and death all who come to him through Jesus Christ. (Matthew 6:9, John 5:19-24, Ephesians 1:3-6)
Jesus Christ is both the eternal Son of God and virgin-born Son of man – fully God and fully man. He surrendered nothing of His deity during His earthly life. Having led a sinless life, He satisfied the Father’s justice concerning sin by His death. We believe in His bodily resurrection, His physical ascension, and His visible return to this earth to establish His earthly kingdom. (John 1:14-18, 1 Corinthians 15, Hebrews 2:17-18, Romans 3:24-26, Revelations 20:11-15, Colossians 2:9)
We believe the Holy Spirit executes the will of God in the world of men. It is the Holy Spirit who applies the salvation of Jesus Christ secured through His death on the cross. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. It is the Holy Spirit who empowers the church to live a lifestyle pleasing to God, endowing it with special gifts which equip believers to accomplish distinct ministries, planned beforehand by God the Father. (1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 2:10, John 3:1-8, John 16:4-15, Ephesians 1:13-14, John 15:16, Galatians 5:16-25)
We believe the act of baptism is sacred, and commanded by scripture. Every believer, serious in his or her faith, will also be serious about baptism. It is the “badge” of our identity with Christ. In many ways, baptism is to Christianity what a ring is to marriage. The picture of baptism declares a variety of scriptural truths:
-It proclaims Christ’s death and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)
-It serves public notice to the world of one’s new life in Christ. (Matthew 10:32)
-It pictures a believer’s death to sin and his resurrection to a spiritual life and lifestyle through the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 6:3-7, 10-11)
The command of Jesus is be baptized. By it, we both please the Lord and declare His reality in our lives and to the world. Our method of baptism is the method of immersion. We feel strongly that this mode is the one presented in the New Testament for the following reasons:
-The Greek word for baptism means, “to submerge, plunge, drench, saturate, dip.” (Arndt and Guingrich, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, p. 131) -Immersion followed the Jewish proselyte practice
-The practice of the early church was immersion
The Lord’s Supper is primarily summed up in the command of Christ, Do this in remembrance of Me. It is first and foremost a memorial of Christ and His redemptive death, and secondly an expression of our fellowship with one another. (Luke 22:19 – 20, I Corinthians 11: 24-25) We believe the Lord’s Supper is open to all who meet the prerequisites outlined in Scripture.
-That one personally knows Jesus Christ as Savior
-That one approaches communion in a worth manner. (I Corinthians 11:17-34)
The instruction as to how often we should partake of the Lord’s Supper: the Scripture says , “As often as you do this, do this in remembrance of Me”. (1Corinthians 11:23-26) (Luke 22:19)