Sunday, March 15, 2009

Going to church the Bible Baptist way

(I thought it would be interesting to use Sundays to focus on Rensselaer's churches and to see how many Sundays I can go before I run out of material. Indiana is richly endowed with religious denominations, with influences from North and South, East and West. This is part of that series of posts. )

The Bible Baptist Church on 722 North Summer Street (or north of Clark Street and west of Brookside Creek) has Sunday services at 9 a.m and 8 p.m. The pastor is David Hoffman. The Rensselaer Republican does not have them in the proper alphabetical spot in the "Church Services Directory." (They seem at one time to have been called the Open Door Baptist Church and the Open Bible Baptist Church, which would account for their place in the "Church Services Directory.") Below is the view from Vine Street.
Here is the view from Clark Street.
The church does not have a website, but it is listed here http://www.biblebelievers.com/churches/. This is not an organizational site; rather the churches listed here agree on a set of beliefs, including:
We believe the King James "Authorized Version" Bible to be the perfect and infallible word of God. We believe the Bible was inspired in its origination and then divinely preserved throughout its various generations and languages until it reached us in its final form. By this we mean that the Authorized Version preserves the very words of God in the form in which He wished them to be represented in the universal language of these last days: English.

We believe a man is secured in his salvation eternally and unconditionally at the moment he believes. This condition is secured by the numerous irreversible works of God and the Holy Spirit.

We believe that believers should be immersed in water after being saved. Such believers baptism is an ordinance but is not a means of grace. Also This directory contains a listing of churches organized by geographical region. Among these churches you will find differing practices and convictions. Why? The Bible teaches that a local, New Testament church should be autonomous (i.e. self-governing).
The Bible Baptist Church is listed here as an independent Baptist church and here as a King James Bible Church.

Wikipedia has more about generic Baptists. Baptists dominate the south as the maps from Valparaiso University illustrate.

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