Believing that the church, as the body of Christ, is the continuing incarnation of God, we, the members of Believers Baptist Fellowship make this covenant with God and with one another.
We covenant with God to seek...
- To develop our personal relationships with God
- To see where God is at work in the world and to join in this work
- To speak on God's behalf and to hear God's word when it is spoken
- To demonstrate God's love an to be open to receive it
We covenant with one another to seek...
- To explore the meaning of being the continuing incarnation of God
- To build Christian community, affirming the worth of all persons
- To nurture persons as they grow in wisdom, faith, and personal relationships
- To help persons discern their gifts and to call them to exercise these gifts
- To minister to one another, being sensitive to individuals, families, and groups
- To help one another celebrate life
- To provide Christian nurture for children
- To provide opportunities for spiritual growth
- To give from personal resources to support this fellowship in doing God's work
- To be accountable to one another for living faithfully in this covenant relationship
We believe that wherever we discover and exercise the gifts God has given each of us in where we find our strengths. We come together as a congregation of believers to match ur strengths with the needs around us. Therein, we believe, we find the will of God for our lives and for our church.
We believe that our church is also to be a fellowship of support through loving acceptance and prayerful intercession for one another as we each live our faith.
We believe God has called us together to serve our community and welcome all who choose to worship with us.
As Christians, we practice...
- submission to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
- the love of God who forgives us regardless of our deserving and makes no distinctions among us, regardless of race, gender, or past transgressions.
- God's commission to go to the homeland and to all the world sharing the good news that forgiveness of sin and redemption of life is the gift of God through His Son, Jesus.
- God's commission to also minister in His name to those who suffer.
As Baptists, we practice...
- the authority of the Word of God found in the Bible which is the standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried; the criterion by which the Bible is to be interpreted is Jesus Christ.
- the nature of the church as an autonomous body, operating through democratic processes under the leadership of Jesus Christ to whom we each are individually and equally responsible.
- the priesthood of the believer which means (1) we each have access to God's grace through Jesus Christ our sole intermediary and are answerable to Him in all our decisions, and (2) we each have responsibility to heed His call, discern His will and be ministers to one another as Christ has ministered to us.
Believers Baptist Fellowship was the first church in the Nashville area to affiliate solely with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. It was organized by individuals who dreamed of free and faithful Baptists coming together to bild a church where God is honored, each believer is his or her own priest, the local congregation is autonomous, and where cooperation with other Christians and Christian groups is normal--all done in felowship of love.
A group of individuals first began meeting in the fall of 1998 in Madison, TN and called Dr. Tim Rayborn to be their pastor. The Believers Baptist Fellowship moved to Hendersonville in 1999 and was constituted a church in January 2000, with bylaws and carefully planned ways to work together in an orderly cooperation.