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Our desire at Immanuel Bible Fellowship is to establish a local church based on the authority of Scripture and return to the most important basics presented in Scripture regarding the function of a local church. As the early Church “continually devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer” (Acts 2:42), and later chose their priorities to be “prayer and the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:4), we desire to return to the basics of prayer and the ministry of the Word in establishing and building a local church.
We are excited in anticipation of what the Lord will do as we seek to obey His “first of all” exhortation to us for prayer, to include “entreaties, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority” (1 Timothy 2:1-2). We believe this exhortation not only includes praying specifically for government officials, but also for husbands to pray for wives, wives for their husbands, parents for their children, children for their parents, employers for their employees, employees for their employers, etc., and particularly for those attending Immanuel Bible Fellowship to pray for one another (Ephesians 1:15-16).
We are also excited in anticipation of what the Lord will do through our ministering of His Word. We firmly believe in the expositional preaching and teaching of God’s Word so as to fulfill the primary purpose of preaching and teaching, which is, “for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12). As an integral part of fulfilling this primary purpose, we seek to promote corporate gatherings for worship and teaching where believers of all ages are welcome. This better equips believers for greater Kingdom service; it also promotes greater unity within the local church (Ephesians 4:1-6).
In our "breaking of bread" and "fellowship" (Acts 2:42) we also seek to achieve unity among the believers within the local church (Ephesians 4:1-6) by promoting regular times for observing the Lord's Table and fellowship.
Overall, in times of teaching, prayer, fellowship, breaking of bread, etc., it is our desire to promote a multi-generational fellowship, blending all God's people in one congregation, so as to do Biblical church ministry in a multi-generational setting.
As it is our desire to establish a local church based on the authority of Scripture and return to the most important basics presented in Scripture regarding the function of a local church, our philosophy of "doing church" is also basic. By getting back to the basics, worship is our priority, honoring and adoring God in everything. It is our conviction that if the priority is on worship, then ministry will have the right priority and balance. "Worship is the perfect balance to ministry, but the order of priority begins with worship, not ministry." 1
1 John MacArthur, Worship, the Ultimate Priority, p. 49, (c) 2012
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