Independent Baptist

Being that independent baptist don't usually believe in denominations most will not be affiliated with any cooperative fellowship of churches. Most of the these churches hold to conservative views on theology and doctrine, some will hold to a "fundamentalist" stance on such matters. Independent baptist missionaries have no sending agencies, rather rely on the contributions from various churches and individuals to help support their ministries.

Great to hear about your new found life in Christ my Christian friend. It is a wonderful family you have become a part of and I encourage you in your walk and faith!

 

Hello,
I'm also a new member at an independant Baptist church. I never realized how many different kinds of Baptists there are until just recently, when I came to this board.

Congradulations on accepting Jesus into your heart.

 

preachingjesus has pretty much answered all your questions.

I would only say that your primary concern is whether the focus is on Christ; I don't know any other way to get information on an independent Baptist church apart from searching scripture to determine their beliefs to be based upon that word alone.

There will be differences in some things, you just need to identify what you can receive as necessary essentials from scripture and determine the position of the body you are worshipping with, sometimes, I think people don't follow this far enough out and after a few years differences in understanding arise and this may or may not cause hurt feelings.

But, I usually, though generally, associate 'independent' as being fundamentalists, not in a bad way. I belong to an idependent missionary Baptist body.

Thankful for your reason for hope
God Bless
Bro. Dallas

 

I belong to an Independant Baptist Church and our church goes strictly by the Bible. Our Pastor is very strict about adhering to the teachings and does not agree with "liberal" views. But, I must say that I have been to other Baptist churches and they taught the same views. That is what attracted me to the Baptist church in the first place. Every one that I have attended was strictly "by the Book" and had no room for "justification of sin" nor did they run their churches in order to please the masses. This is not meant to be a slam against other denominations but rather to say that the Baptist believe system is right for me and what I believe. God bless!

 

The thing you have to watch out for is legalism.
My dad and our Sunday School director came from Ind Baptist and the churchs they attended were very legalistic. No bowling, pants, etc....
See what the bible says.

 

Perhaps it may be in the terminology, but my understanding of Baptist history, and involvement in Baptist ministry leads me to the conclusion that all Baptist churches, whether they cooperate with a fellowship, denominational group, or not, are independent. When I was growing up, and my Dad pastored ABC-USA churches, it was quite clearly emphasized that the church was independent and autonomous, and that its level of cooperation with the denomination was strictly up to the congregation with no strings attached. Denominational agencies and ministries existed for serving the local church and for cooperative "efficiency and stewardship" in the use of funds and the local churches could change their relationship at any time simply by voting. Of course, this arrangement made denominational workers accountable to the local churches.

When I pastored an SBC church, though the perspectives were a little different, and the SBC was "going through the change" that would make an attempt to exercize greater ecclesiastical authority over the churches, the fact remained that the churches were independent, autonomous and voluntarily aligned with the denomination. The main difference between SBC and ABC-USA is that in the SBC, the money generally goes from the church to one place, the state convention, while in ABC-USA, there were several areas where a church sent their mission money.

Even in today's SBC, which has denominational leaders attempting to exercise control over local churches, the only thing they can do is refuse churches the right to have members seated on agency and ministry boards and if they do that, they must, in good conscience, return their mission money as well. It is still up to the church. So technically, and in practice, all Baptist churches are "independent."

 

As you can see from this forum ABCM there is a wide diversity of views in the Baptist community .