Who We Are
GREATER INDIANAPOLIS CIRCLE CITY DISTRICT CONFERENCE
DENOMINATIONAL STATEMENT
“We Are Free Will Baptists By Denomination, Pentecostal By Experience, Holiness According To The Word Of God”
We are indeed Free Will Baptist by denomination. We believe there is only one true and living God who is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. As Free Will Baptists we believe the total scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments were divinely given by inspiration of God and therefore, are our rule of faith and practice (2Timothy 3:16; 2Peter 1:20). Further, we believe in believer’s baptism by immersion, the provision of the Lord’s Supper and the washing of the saint’s feet.
We pattern our practices after the doctrine established by the apostles called to service by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our district is designed according to the model established by Christ as described in the New Testament book of history, The Acts of the Apostles. We recognize and promote the five-fold ministry gifts given to the Church for the edifying of the body, the spiritual gifts poured out upon each believer for the benefit of the body according to the sanction of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We promote the order established by God and patterned by the early Church with Jesus Christ as the Head Shepherd of the body of Christ and the moderator, vice moderators and pastors as His anointed and appointed under-shepherds.
We practice holiness as a way of life in Christ. We live holy because God is holy and He instructed us to be holy (Leviticus 19:2; 1Peter 1:15-16). Holiness as a lifestyle is not something that can be put on and discarded at will. It is a life changing and life affirming walk in Christ that begins on the inside as we freely determine to turn from and walk away from a life of sin and into a life that is directed and determined by Jesus as our Counselor, Guide and Righteous Judge. Holiness begins on the inside with a change of our minds and hearts and makes its way to the outside through the obvious change in our attitudes, our living condition, our decision-making and our devotion to God.
It is evident that the Greater Indianapolis Circle City District Conference is under-girded by a strong Bible designed doctrine patterned upon the plan established by God, which allows each believer to walk according to the holy example set by Jesus Christ.
DENOMINATIONAL STATEMENT
“We Are Free Will Baptists By Denomination, Pentecostal By Experience, Holiness According To The Word Of God”
We are indeed Free Will Baptist by denomination. We believe there is only one true and living God who is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. As Free Will Baptists we believe the total scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments were divinely given by inspiration of God and therefore, are our rule of faith and practice (2Timothy 3:16; 2Peter 1:20). Further, we believe in believer’s baptism by immersion, the provision of the Lord’s Supper and the washing of the saint’s feet.
We pattern our practices after the doctrine established by the apostles called to service by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our district is designed according to the model established by Christ as described in the New Testament book of history, The Acts of the Apostles. We recognize and promote the five-fold ministry gifts given to the Church for the edifying of the body, the spiritual gifts poured out upon each believer for the benefit of the body according to the sanction of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We promote the order established by God and patterned by the early Church with Jesus Christ as the Head Shepherd of the body of Christ and the moderator, vice moderators and pastors as His anointed and appointed under-shepherds.
We practice holiness as a way of life in Christ. We live holy because God is holy and He instructed us to be holy (Leviticus 19:2; 1Peter 1:15-16). Holiness as a lifestyle is not something that can be put on and discarded at will. It is a life changing and life affirming walk in Christ that begins on the inside as we freely determine to turn from and walk away from a life of sin and into a life that is directed and determined by Jesus as our Counselor, Guide and Righteous Judge. Holiness begins on the inside with a change of our minds and hearts and makes its way to the outside through the obvious change in our attitudes, our living condition, our decision-making and our devotion to God.
It is evident that the Greater Indianapolis Circle City District Conference is under-girded by a strong Bible designed doctrine patterned upon the plan established by God, which allows each believer to walk according to the holy example set by Jesus Christ.
Our History
The Free Will Baptist denomination is a fellowship of evangelical believers of Christ with the mission of building His church throughout the world.
The Free Will Baptist church traces its roots to John Smyth in England during the early 1600’s. Smyth had been a priest in the Church of England but he became dissatisfied with the unbiblical practices of the Church of England. Smyth went from being an Anglican to a Puritan to a Separatist and eventually he departed from the Anglican Church.
In the early 1600’s, Smyth and Thomas Helwys began the General Baptist movement. Helwys was a lawyer and lay leader within Smyth’s congregation. In the church’s early history, Smyth began to question the method by which he had been baptized (sprinkling). He began to believe in infant baptism, however after closer examination of the scripture, both Smyth and Helwys rejected infant baptism for believer’s baptism. Smyth believed so strongly in believer baptism that he baptized himself before he baptized the rest of his congregation. At this time, the Anglican Church began to persecute the General Baptist church. Smyth and Helwys moved the church to Holland. It was in Holland that they met Jacobus Arminius. Both Smyth and Helwys moved from being Calvinist to embracing the views of Arminius. Arminius taught the doctrine of “free will”: inherent in this doctrine is the possibility of “falling from grace”.
Helwys broke with Smyth and Smyth began to teach Mennonite views as well as other doctrine. Helwys established the first Baptists, General or Arminian Baptists. The first Calvinist church started a generation after the General Baptist church began. The Arminian Baptists were known as General Baptists while the Calvinist Baptists were called Particular Baptists. The first Baptist believers were called “General or Free Will Baptists” because they believed that Christ’s atonement was a general atonement (Christ died for all mankind) rather than a particular atonement (Christ died only for the elect predetermined by God) that was taught by the Calvinists.
Helwys used the 1660 English General Baptist Confession of Faith to explain the Free Will Baptist movement to the king of England. He thought that if he could explain the Baptist doctrine to the king and the head of the Anglican Church the persecution of the Baptist church would end. General Baptists endured and experienced growth, but the Particular Baptists continually tried to convert the General Baptists to their Calvinistic doctrine. The General Baptist or Free Will Baptist church eventually spread to the American colonies during the late 1600’s. The rise of Free Will Baptists can be traced to the influence of Baptists of Arminian persuasion from England who settled in colonies along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.
The denomination sprang up on at least two fronts at almost the same time. The southern line, or Palmer movement, traces its beginnings to the year 1727 when Paul Palmer organized a church at Chowan County, North Carolina. Palmer had previously ministered in New Jersey and Maryland, having been baptized in a congregational church that had moved from Wales to a tract on the Delaware River in northern Pennsylvania. The Free Will Baptists in the south used the 1660 English General Baptists Confession of Faith until 1812 when the document was condensed and revised. The majority of Free Will Baptists trace their origin to the Palmer movement which originated with the General Baptist settlers that came from England in the late 1600’s.
William Sojourner, Josiah Hart and Joseph Parker developed, during a span of 25 years, twenty or more General Baptist churches within the early American colonies. However, the Calvinists were more successful in converting the Free Will ministers and less successful at converting the actual Free Will Church members.
The northern line, or Randall movement, had its beginnings with a congregation organized by Benjamin Randall on June 30, 1780 in New Durham, New Hampshire. The Randall movement had extensive contact with the General Baptists of England during the 1800’s.
In 1827, the General Conference of the Randall Movement, in one of its first sessions decided to ordain African Americans to the ministry, a significant forecast of the strong position which it was to take against slavery in later years. In time, a further indication of its liberality became clear when it ordained women ministers without opposition.
Both lines of Free Will Baptists taught the doctrines of free grace, free salvation and free will although from the first there was no organizational connection between them. Early Free Will Baptists took the New Testament pattern of the church very seriously: they believed in simplistic worship. They stressed the value of Christian ordinances like feet washing.
In the early 1800’s, the name Free Will Baptist began to be used to describe the General Baptist churches.