Welcome!
Coming to a new environment can sometimes make you feel like an outsider. But at Grace Fellowship we know no strangers. We have even had visitors come who did not speak English and yet felt the warmth of a Christian welcome. Reading the gospel accounts of the Lord Jesus we find Him receiving all types of men and women in every imaginable condition of need. He received them, confronted them (this is what the Word of God does) and they were changed by His grace (unmerited favor). You need an encounter with God. We welcome you to join us.
Who We Are
The New Testament Church was very simple in its worship. The preeminent figure was the Lord Jesus Christ. Churches searched the Old Testament Scriptures as they had prophesied of the coming Messiah (Christ, the Anointed One). The truth they found and the eye witness accounts of the Apostles concerning Jesus of Nazareth became the foundation for the epistles that would give instruction and structure to the first century church and beyond. GFBC continues in this simple historic singing of traditional hymns and the preaching of God’s preserved Word. “The Lamb is all the glory of Emmanuel’s land” (The Sands of Time Are Sinking).
Beginning
On November 20, 1981 a group of ten men met together to discuss the organization of a New Testament church, taking the temporary name of Baptist Christian Fellowship. The following Sunday around fifty people gathered at the temporary meeting place, Venable Community Center, to worship the Lord Jesus Christ.
First Meeting
On November 29, 1981 forty two souls signed “A Covenant to Organize a Baptist Church.” In the month of December the name “Grace Fellowship Baptist Church” was adopted.
Call to Pastor
In January of 1982, there was a 100% vote to call Brother Bob Doom as pastor of the church. On February 10, 1982 Brother Doom accepted the call of the church to come officially April 1, 1982.
Organization
On March 31, 1982 the “Grace Fellowship Baptist Church” was organized as an unincorporated association under the common laws of the state of North Carolina. The Bible was adopted as our constitution and the King James Version of the Bible was adopted as the best English translation. Since then the church has accepted A Faith to Confess: The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 as our articles of faith.
Missions
From the very first Sunday, the church has had an interest in Missions. It was unanimously voted to place 10% of the gross offerings into the mission fund and John & Joy Bronniman laboring in New Guinea were the first missionaries supported by the church. Today GFBC continues to be mission minded and is currently supporting thirty missionaries and mission organizations. Our church now supports our missionaries using the Faith Promise Program. Our church to date has given over $1.4 million to missions. To God be the Glory!
A fuller expression of our faith and the salvation for which the Lord Jesus Christ died is in our acceptance of A Faith to Confess: The Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 with the exception of its view of “last things.” We believe in the imminent return of our Lord and therefore hold to the pretribulation rapture of the church and the premillennial return of Christ with a literal 1000 year reign of Christ and His restoration of national Israel followed by His final judgments. A copy of this historic document may be supplied upon request.
The Gospel of Luke records these words of Jesus, “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” From this simple statement comes the condescension and purpose of Jesus as the Son of man. Jesus was fully God and fully man. “Son” is capitalized to mark His divine origin. While possessing every feature of man He exclusively bore the features of God the Father, “Who being the brightness of his [the Father] glory, and the express image of his [the Father] person.” Jesus then fully represented God the Father and man; and to what purpose? It was to seek and to save. As the Father sent His Son, the Son has sent His church to preach the Gospel (Good News) for the “saving” of the “lost.” This is why Jesus came and is the main responsibility of every true New Testament church, glorifying God in every aspect of its existence. But there is a further command given to the church. We are to “teach” the believer to “observe all things whatsoever I [Jesus] commanded you.” This comes through expositional (word by word, verse by verse) preaching. Christians must learn to think and act biblically. The true Christian submits to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. The simplicity of the Gospel is that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I [Paul (and ourselves)] am chief.”
If you should be reading these words and know deep in your soul that you are lost, there is a Savior. Acknowledge that you are lost, repent of your sin and rebellion and believe on the LORD JESUS CHRIST.
Missionaries:
Articles of Faith
We believe in the verbal, plenary inspiration and authority of the Scriptures.
We believe in the Holy Trinity consisting of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
We believe in the deity, virgin birth, substitutionary death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Christ Jesus the Lord, having died and shed His blood according to God’s gracious purpose, redeemed a people to Himself.
We believe that salvation is solely by the grace of God.
- Christ Jesus the Lord, having died and shed His blood according to God’s gracious purpose, redeemed a people to Himself.
- The New Birth is an effectual work of God’s grace which produces repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.
We believe in a visible, personal, pretribulational, premillennial return of Jesus Christ for believers.
We believe in the responsibility for Christians to glorify the Lord in both the edification of fellow believers and the evangelism of the lost.
We believe heaven and hell are literal, everlasting, and conscious locations: heaven being reserved for believers, and hell being reserved for unbelievers.
We believe that God has ordained the local church for the perpetuation of His Word and work.
We use only the King James Version of the Bible in the pulpit and in classroom instruction.
Without apology, we stand against the ecumenical movement, the modern charismatic movement, hypercalvinism and replacement theology.
Our Pastor
Pastor Ben Wilkerson
Pastor Ben has been in the Gospel ministry since 1976. Upon graduation from Southland Bible Institute in Pikeville, KY Ben’s first ministry was to serve as a youth pastor in West Virginia. In 1982-2001 he had the opportunity to reopen closed churches in Upstate New York. In 2001-2012 he served as Assistant to the Director of Global Baptist Mission and was a member of GFBC during those years. In December 2012 he accepted the call to pastor Stone-Eden Baptist Church in Stoneville, NC concluding that ministry in October 2017. Grace Fellowship extended a call to become their pastor and he began his ministry in June 2018. He and his wife Sharon have three married children and eight grandchildren.