Church Ministries

The Ministries of Grace Bible Fellowship

follow the pattern set by the early church in Acts 2:42

And they (the church) continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers."

A Ministry of Bible Teaching

The human heart is a dark place. That spiritual darkness is so deep that unless God opens our eyes we cannot see the kingdom of heaven or the glories of God. So God sent His words to illuminate our hearts. The entrance of His words give light, and bring maturity.

Since the purpose for the church gathered is for the church to come to maturity (Eph. 4:13). Many activities are noted in the gathered church to accomplish this end. The word teaching (Gk. didache) is synonymous with the word doctrine. Teaching is an important factor in edification, and it made up a vital part of the New Testament church. Members of the early church steadfastly devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles (Acts 2:42).
They taught the doctrine of the resurrection of Christ (Acts 4:2); they taught continually, as they had opportunity (Acts 5:21, 25), to the extent that the entire city of Jerusalem was saturated with the teaching about Christ and His atonement (Acts 5:28).

The heart of their message was that Jesus was indeed the Messiah (Acts 5:42; 17:3). Teaching the new believers resulted in their maturity (Acts 11:26; 15:35).

The goal of Paul’s teaching was to present a believer mature in Christ (Col. 1:28); hence, teaching was to be an ongoing practice to succeeding generations (2 Tim. 2:2). Failure to do so or failure to respond to teaching resulted in spiritual babyhood (Heb. 5:12).

A Ministry of Fellowship

Sharing - 1 John 1:3-4 "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these thing write we unto you, that your joy may be full"

John sought to establish, or perhaps to broaden, the fellowship between himself and his readers. "Fellowship" here means "a close association or relationship"; in Christian terms this means mutual acceptance of and submission to the verities of Christian faith. It means sharing in personal knowledge of and heartfelt obedience to God through Jesus Christ.

Caring - 1 John 3:16-18 "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth."

The standard for our love is God’s love in Christ, who died for us. Love that observes need, and does not act to minister to it, is no love at all. Bowels of compassion in modern English would be "heart," proceeding from our inward core of awareness and action.

Loving - 1 John 4:16 "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."

John, like Paul (1 Cor. 13:13), stresses the supremacy of love as a characteristic of God and therefore as a dominant characteristic of the true believer.

Growing - Eph 4:15 "But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love."
Christ joins believers together and unites them by the divinely ordained ministries of Christians who possess diverse spiritual gifts, which are exercised and used among believers for the common good. The church’s spiritual growth, then, comes from Christ through the believers’ ministry to one another as they employ their spiritual gifts.

A Ministry of Communion

The Lord’s Supper - Weekly, Grace Bible Fellowship takes time to remember the once for all, offering of Christ. We do this because we are so prone to forget his love. This memorial weekly reminds us of God's great love.

The Lord’s Supper is the distinctive symbol of Christian worship instituted by the Lord on the eve of His death, being a spiritual partaking of bread and the fruits of the vine. These elements are presented as a thankful expression of Christ’s sacrifice, taken in fellowship with Him and with one another. It is a memorial conducted in remembrance of Christ’s atoning death, anticipating His return to earth. The two symbols of this ordinance are the bread, representing the broken body of Christ, and the cup, representing His shed blood.

Every Christian should worship in thanksgiving, hope, and purity during the Lord’s Supper examining and judging his own life.

A Ministry of Prayer

Wednesday nights we gather to pray. Each of us have friends, family members and concerns that need God's intervention. While many problems are beyond our wisdom and strength, we take comfort in knowing that God delights in hearing and answering our prayers. So we pray.

Both Jesus (Luke 18:1) and Paul (1 Tim. 2:1) emphasized the importance of prayer, noting that people ought always to pray. Prayer includes asking and getting answers from God. But it is more than just asking; it is confession, adoration, thanksgiving, and fellowship with God. By its nature, prayer is talking with God. It is the basis of the successful Christian life, and is so important that not praying is considered a sin (1 Sam. 12:23). When we pray, we should follow the model prayer Jesus gave His disciples and address it to our heavenly Father—beginning with adoration, including thanksgiving and confession of sins, making reconciliation with others, praying for our needs and the needs of others, and concluding in Jesus’ name (6:9–15; John 14:14).

God will answer our prayer when we obey Him (1 John 3:22), confess sin (Ps. 66:18), abide in Christ (John 15:7), ask according to the will of God (1 John 5:14), ask in faith (Mark 11:24), have pure motives (James 4:3), and live peaceably with our mate (1 Pet. 3:7). (Matt. 7:7; cf. 1 John 5:14, 15.)

A Ministry of Fellowship with Other Churches

Someone has said that the New Testament church was like a bottle of medicine that had many ingredients in it, but no label.

It practiced baptism but there were no Baptists.

It believed in predestination, but there were no Presbyterians.

It believed in the Holy Spirit but there were no Charismatics.

It practiced order in their gatherings but their were no Methodist.

It observed the Lord's Supper but there were no Plymouth Brethren.

It feared God, but there were no Quakers.

There were bishops but no Episcopalians.

The early church, was a church where all the ingredients were present, but there were no labels that fragmented.

Grace Bible Fellowship, adheres to that practice. We are a church practicing the principles of the New Testament, without taking a name that will fragment the church of Jesus Christ. We believe that to do so is an offense to the person of Christ, an offense to the work of Christ, and an offense to our very confession of allegiance to Christ.

If you love Jesus Christ, and singularly delight in God's truth, while loving Christian fellowship than you will feel right at home among us.

We gladly fellowship with churches of like faith and extend the right hand of Christian fellowship to all who love Jesus Christ. We welcome all visitors, and encourage all those who are seeking God and His will to join us.