WHY WE'RE STAYING PT. 2

I realized that in my last post I neglected to mention why we love our church. And we do! We've been members for ten years. I've been a Christian for almost fifteen years and before we came to JFBC I had never attended a church for longer than two years. My husband and I did not get married at JFBC. The church where we met went through a sort of "split" over issues concerning the pastor's integrity. So when we left and started looking for a new church one thing we were looking for was a pastor who was honest and accountable. That was probably the main reason we were drawn to JFBC. Southern Baptist churches rarely have elders. Usually the church hierarchy is composed of deacons and the pastor. One of the reasons we left our previous church was because the deacons just became "yes men" to the pastor. When Bryant Wright was called to pastor JFBC (he's been the only pastor), he and others were convicted that we needed to have elders and more accountability. We greatly admire our pastor for his conviction and willingness to go against the grain if he feels its biblical. He will side with the Bible over tradition every time and we respect him for that. He also has a great marriage and his children have grown into responsible, godly young men. His oldest is also a pastor at JFBC.

We've also been blessed by the way our church handles conflict. I've never known of any sort of "gossip campaigns" going around. If there's a problem with someone who needs to undergo church discipline, it's done in a biblical and discreet manner. Also, when my husband was unemployed for over a year, we were constantly amazed at the support we received from various areas in the church from my women's bible study to the pastoral care staff to the church orchestra.

Like I said in the previous post, we're not perfect and no church is. But we are blessed to be members at JFBC and Lord willing, we'll be able to continue there for a long time.