Who we are

A Quick Look at Who We Are
Grace Baptist Church is simply a group of individuals who have who repented of our sins, trusted in Christ alone for salvation and have covenanted together to worship and to live life together.   We desire to be a church that is known for loving downtown Wake Forest and reflecting the great diversity that can be found in our town.

What we Believe
Because we believe we can do more together than we can apart, Grace Baptist church chooses to cooperate with other autonomous churches in the Southern Baptist Convention.  We have adopted the  The Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as our official statement of faith.

In addition to the BFM2000, we also hold two other core distinctives:

1.  Restorative Church Discipline: We believe Christ has commanded the church to practice restorative church discipline to pursue wayward members and to preserve the purity of the church.

2.  Plurality of Elders and Deacons: We believe the church should strive to maintain a plurality of biblically-qualified, gifted men serving in the offices of elder/pastor and deacon.

We have also just finished a complete revision of our Constitution and By-laws. 

Striving to Be A Healthy Church
At Grace Baptist Church we are convinced that a church that honors God will be a healthy church.  A healthy church, we believe, will both believe and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, will have a regenerate church membership, will practice church discipline, will have Biblical church leadership, will strive to have unity within the congregation, will have a membership that matters, and will be committed to making disciples.  Though no church is perfect, we strive to honor Jesus in what we do as a church.  If you would like to know more about what the Bible says about these issues, feel free to read the sermons below that were preached by our preaching pastor Kyle Smith on each of these subjects in the Spring of 2008.  

The Gospel
This is what we believe, preach, live, trust, defend, and cherish. This is the foundation and basis for all that we do as a ministry. Above all else, this is the most precious of all doctrines.

1. God, our Creator, is perfect and His standard for us is perfection. (1 Peter 1:15-16)

2.  We have sinned against God by sinning against Him, by breaking His commandments, and by falling short of His standard of perfection.  We are all totally depraved, being dead in our trespasses, alienated from God, not seeking after Him, even being enemies of God and being hostile towards Him. (Romans 3:23)

3. The punishment for our sin against God is death; both spiritually and physically.  Because God is a good God, a just God, and a holy God, He must punish sin.  Those who rebel against Him and who never repent are sentenced to Hell for eternity where the wrath of God will be poured out on them in its fullness. (Romans 6:23, Ephesians 2:1-4)

4. Christ, who is God, added to His divinity a human nature and came to earth as a man, lived the perfect and completely sinless life that God demands, but that we are not able to live. (Hebrews 4:14-17)

5. Christ died a sacrificial death as a substitute in our place on the cross taking the punishment and wrath from God that we deserve.  He rose from the dead after three days, showing His victory over sin and death. (Romans 4:25, Luke 24:6-7)

6. Christ offers us forgiveness for our sins and a reconciled relationship with God, not because of any good work that we have done, but only because of His free grace which He gives.  This happens when we  trust not in our own "good works" but in Christ alone and what He accompished in His atonement on the cross and His resurrection. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

7. In order for this forgiveness to occur, we must repent of our sins, which is God's work in our hearts and mind which results in a decision to turn away from our sinful ways and begin following Jesus. (2 Timothy 2:25, Luke 13:3, Acts 3:19, Luke 15:10)

8.  If we confess our sins, Christ will forgive us our sins and He will cleanse us from all of or guilt. (1 John 1:9-10, Romans 10:9-10)

9.  Those that are saved will persevere in faith until the end, continually trusting Christ and treasuring Him above all else.  (Phil. 1:6, Jude 1:24, Eph. 4:20)

10. God's people - people from every ethnicity, every language, every nation and from every people group - will be saved to be with God worshiping, enjoying and glorifying Him forever. (Rev. 5:9-10; 7:9-12)

Our Vision and Mission
In a nutshell we could say that our mission is “to glorify God” (Eph. 3:21). That’s the reason we exist, both individually and corporately, to exalt the supreme worth of the Triune God. But what does that look like? How do we carry that out? The answer is, by following God’s prescription for doing church. The God who created the church to display His glory is the one whose marching orders the church must follow. And those orders are found in the Bible. Our vision is to be a healthy church, practicing the distinctives of a healthy church that we believe Scripture teaches. Church health may not always be a fashionable goal in today’s culture, but being fashionable isn’t our ultimate goal. Instead, it’s being faithful. Our aim is to please God, not man, and we believe that healthy churches that are faithful to God’s word are the means that He has chosen to bring glory to Himself.

We want to be faithful to share the gospel (Rom. 10:14-17), to make disciples (Matt. 28:18-20), and to see them grow to maturity in Christ (Col. 1:28). To do that, we as a congregation need to know and love the gospel. We need instruction from pastors who are careful to teach us sound doctrine and model for us godly living (1 Tim. 4:16). And it is our prayer that as we are faithful to do these things, God would bring in a harvest of converts and grow them to Christian maturity, to the end that His name would be glorified.  

How to become a Member
To unite with GBC as a member, once must be baptized as a believer in Jesus Christ.  Grace Baptist Church receives members through one of three ways:

1.  A profession of faith in Jesus Christ.
2.  A letter from the church of which you were most recently a member.
3.  A statement of faith that you have trusted in Christ and have received believers baptism in a church of like faith and practice.

Before one can become a member, he must participate in a Prospective Members' Class (PMC).  This is a six week class that covers important foundational issues concerning what Grace Baptist Church believes, our core distinctives, theology and doctrine, and what it means to be a church member. The PMC is designed for both those who are interested in finding out more information about Grace Baptist Church and also for those who are pursuing membership.  To join a PMC class, just contact one of the elders and they will let you know when the next class will begin. Furthermore, in order to unite with us in membership, one must agree to honor the GBC Church Covenant.

Associate Membership
OMV also allows in some circumstances what we call an "Associate Membership" also known as "Watchcare Membership".  This is designed for students and others temporarily residing in the greater Wake Forest area, who are members in good standing of an evangelical church.  Qualifications are identical to those for full membership as set out above, except that home church membership must be retained.  A letter of commendation will be required from the applicants home church.

Duties and privileges of associate members are the same as for other members except that:
1) when absent from the Wake Forest area for extended periods of time they are released from the responsibility to attend our church services, and 2) while they will be encouraged to participate in business meetings they will not be eligible to stand for any office or to vote.

Associate membership will normally terminate immediately upon the ending of the period of temporary residence in Wake Forest.