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Our Story...
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Because of this, we settled on a local GARB Baptist church. Although we had a couple of issues with the doctrinal statement and some of the views held, we settled for the sake of having a local assembly to serve, and came to love some of the people...especially the Pastor & his wife who was there when we joined; However, they retired shortly after. We did become active and were able to serve the Lord with our gifts, talents,abilities and even shortcomings! :) However, spiritually we began suffering. There was no spiritual meat from the pulpit, most of the people were basically Sunday Morning pew warmers except for a couple of elderly people. Any work whatsoever was done by the same group. There was no vision, no desire to learn...a passive contentment to stay exactly the same. The church was not run Biblically, but depended on mans legalistic leadership and was leaving us quite starving for the Word. Please don't think that we were alone... we were not. Out of love for the Lord and a desire to ignite a fire under other brothers and sisters in the Lord we remained and served in whatever capacity needed... with no change. Finally, without giving out sorted details, there was sin found to be going unacted upon amongst the congregation. It soon became evident that this sin was being allowed to continue even though the board of Deacons would attempt to deal with the situation but to no avail...and now, one of the Deacons was actually hindering because of being related to the person needing discipline. It was now time to decide... do we remain as if nothing were wrong and allow sin to stiffle the Lords blessing on this local assembly? Or do we slip away quietly and leave them to handle the problem by not handling the problem? With much prayer, and after attempting to handle the sin but being beat down at every turn, we finally decided to go with the second option,and we left. Now, knowing there was nothing else available to us, what do we do now? Yes, there are other Baptist Church's, but after studying scripture, it was plain to see that we would be entering into yet another situation identicle to the one we just left. What Baptist church's were available were dealing with "situations" of their own...and at this point, we were battle-weary.
For us, the answer was to begin Home Fellowship (or Home Churching). We were not alone in leaving our former church however, we did not want to appear to be gathering discontents against the Lords work there either. As it turns out, some of those who left decided to seek out other organized churches. And others decided to form Mountain View Bible Fellowship. The first thing we did was a study of the New Testiment Church and how the Lord had ordained it to be run. (You can read this study on on the BIBLICAL STUDY TOPICS page). After seeking the Lord prayerfully and through His Word, we began to meet on Sunday mornings. We would gather together at 11:00 on Sunday mornings for a time of singing, praising and worshiping together. We then would use a tape of different topics by Pastor James Knox of Deland, Florida (his information is located on the Resources Page and his tapes are available FREE for the asking on the Free Materials page)as our time of studying God's word. Immediately following the morning service, we would have a fellowship meal together where we would have basically a dish to pass meal. The afternoons are spent fellowshiping together, discussing the mornings message and sharing about what the Lord is doing in our lives. Some remain until its time for evening service, others go home and return again at 6:00 pm for the evening service. At this time, we share a word of testimony and each choose a favorite song and then get into our Bible study time. But it doesn't end there... on Saturday afternoons, we have Ladies Bible Study from 2:00 - 4:00 and then on Saturday evenings at 7:00 we have adult Bible study. Wednesday evenings we gather at 7:00 for a time of prayer and petitioning the Lord on behalf of those requesting us to pray for their needs from the Chronic Pain Prayer Chain Webpage (http://www.ourchurch.com/member/p/PainPrayerChain)
Needless to say, Oh, how the Lord has blessed. There are currently 10 adults who meet, 1 child who is almost 2, and another baby about 2 months old. When the children are old enough, we will begin taking turns teaching Sunday School and teaching these fresh young minds about our precious Lord Jesus Christ.
We are finding the Lord working in our lives in ways we never dreamed possible... nothing material... only spiritual. We are also finding the Lord using us in ways He never had before. We are obediant in remembering the Lord's supper and also His command of Baptism when needed. There is nothing that He has asked of us that we are not able to obey through Home Fellowship. Our brothers and sisters are truly more like brothers and sisters as we are growing closer to the Lord and each other at the same time. There have been no negative issues with Home Fellowship since we've begun in August of 2006...only positive.
I urge you... if you are compromising in a church where you know the Lord is not pleased or are unable to find a Biblically run New Testiment church, study up on it... and form one. The blessings are unnumerable!