A Ministry Of Grace Baptist Church: Fill & Download for Free

Miami Valley Baptist Church for the Deaf and Hearing (their pastor is hard of hearing)Cornerstone Baptist Temple (they have a Deaf ministry)Christ Episcopal ChurchAgape Assembly of God Deaf ChurchGrace Baptist ChurchSo it’s not necessarily always “interpreted,” because hey, we Deaf people can lead services ourselves! This applies to the first two churches on the list, and the last three churches provide interpreted services.

I’m a baptist who considers the SBC a crummy witness to the baptist tradition, so I say: There’s a president with his head on straight.For folks who aren’t familiar with baptist polity (I use the little “b” as Nigel Wright does, to denote the broad spectrum of churches in this tradition) and with the identity of the SBC, here’s my commentary:Every baptist church is independent of every other baptist church. There is no position above that of head pastor. This is called congregational polity.The earliest baptist congregations had female leaders. So it’s in the tradition, but individual congregations are free to choose not to follow the tradition.One of the defining characteristics of the baptist tradition is the priesthood of all believers. We believe that there is no ladder of authority to pass down God’s commands and to dispense God’s grace. Any person in our congregations is as likely as any other to have a call to ministry, which means that stifling female leaders is stifling the work of the Holy Spirit.Another of the defining characteristics of the baptist tradition is soul competency. We believe that all people must be given full access to God, which means we don’t hold anybody back from God. That results in freedom of religion, the separation of Church and State, and again, female leadership, because we believe that God has something special to say to every person, and they must be able to respond.Baptist congregations often band together to pool their resources for overseas missions, local missions, and education. Member churches are still independent. They can get kicked out of the mission board, but that doesn’t generally affect them greatly.The Southern Baptist Convention was formed in the antebellum south, when the biggest mission board in the United States stopped funding missionaries who were slaveholders. The SBC supported slaveholding missionaries.SBC positions on black Americans have continued to be harmful throughout the years. Member churches of the SBC were havens for the KKK, fought desegregation, and opposed interracial marriage. SBC churches have historically subscribed to a tiered view of human purpose and human value, and this transfers to their treatment of women. While there have been congregations and leaders within the SBC who had a truly Christ-like vision of humanity, the overall trend of the SBC has been to take the worst elements of the civic tradition from a generation or two back, and baptize it into Christ’s Church.The SBC is by no means the only game in town. There are baptist churches that fall solidly on the “progressive” side; many of them trace those positions back to the pre-Calvinist thread in their tradition. There are state- and region-wide mission boards unaffiliated with the SBC, which permit membership of churches with female pastors. (I donate my money to the Baptist World Alliance.) There are also many, many baptist churches that are totally off-the-rails awful (Westboro Baptist Church makes an international spectacle of this, but it’s a good illustration of the fact that, with no governing body, anybody can call themselves a baptist!) Historically, the earliest baptist churches had females in leadership positions. Here are a couple of pieces on the role of women at the dawn of the baptist tradition, and the changes wrought by the influx of Calvinists into the baptist tradition:Baptist Women DeaconsBaptist Women in Ministry (Special Baptist Heritage Series)

There are five primary historic strains of Protestantism. Then there are the modern overlays. Historically the arguments are over: the church typically expressed in the form of ministry, and the sacraments, especially the Lord’s Supper and baptismLutheranism - maintains largely Roman Catholic conception of the sacraments, specifically the real presence of Christ and real means of grace. Church wise Lutherans maintain an ordained ministry but are open to many different forms of church from congregationalism to Episcopacy.Anglicanism - This is most like Lutheranism, but due to its English history blurs the sacramental teaching while typically leaning toward an Episcopacy with occasional puritan and congregationalist movements. This is because you have a state church attempting to keep the next two groups within in.Reformed in two branchesCalvinist - The sacraments can be means of grace, but the mystery of the physical presence of Christ becomes a Spiritual presence. The church (Presbyterian) is no longer defined by its ministerium but is ruled by what are typically called Elders. All elders are ordained, but some are teaching elders, which are the only ones the two above would ordain.Zwinglian - The sacraments are meanly ordinances and no longer means of real grace. They are done as the outward sign of the inward change and because Christ told us to. The church is typically congregational in structure with the ministry open to any that feel the call. Ordination is an afterthought at best. Think most non-denoms and baptist churches.The last branch is an amalgamation of sorts.Anabaptist/Pentcostal - These places might have some doctrinal statements, but for the most part trying to figure them out is a meaningless exercise. They are all about the experience of the religion and the power of the Holy Spirit. They might or might not observe the supper. Most of them are extremely congregational, but even at the congregational level, the importance is the individual experience of God. Anyone with the spirit can minister for a day, an hour or longer.The modern overlay on all of these is that almost all of them have a division over the moral law concerning sex. Historically all would agree that all Christians are called to chastity and that the only appropriate local for sexual activity is within male and female lifelong marriage aimed at procreation. Since the early 20th century many of these have either formally or informally schismed into a traditional church and a church that has de facto repealed the commandment on adultery.