A Brief History of Faith Community Baptist Church of Fort Worth
On November 15, 1998, a small group of believers gathered in a home for the study of the Word of God. This providential meeting was the beginning point for what would soon become Faith Community Baptist Church. Following a few weekly gatherings and several planning meetings, on December 6th of the same year, Faith Community Baptist Church was constituted. We were a loosely connected group of people that had providentially been through what might be described as a church split. We were hurting and hungry, but hopeful. One might say we were lacking clarity and direction, but had a Bible in our hands, and at the moment, thought that was all we needed. We were naïve, young, and somewhat foolish, unaware of our need for counsel and unaware of where to get it even if we had known we should. Perhaps needless to say, we were not “reformed.” We were not “confessional.” We were not “associational.”
Yet in the providence of the Lord many of these things over the coming months and years were to begin to change. Our hurts subsided. The Word began to satisfy our hunger. Our hopes were strengthened and directed more and more to the promises of Christ in the gospel. What was vague became clearer, and where we lacked direction, we often saw the Lord bring guidance. As the realization for counsel became more acute, we cried for wisdom, and the Lord providentially began to bring counselors our way.
The story of our church life can really be told as two, very different, stories. Story one is that of the “pre-associational” church. The life of this church was lived during the years 1998-2011. During these years we moved from a strong biblicism to an “externally” confessional position. After a brief study with the church for a few months, and without really understanding what it contained, we adopted our current confession of faith, the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith in 2003. We were by 2003 a “Calvinistic” church embracing a “reformed” doctrine of salvation, practicing as best we knew a “regulated” worship according to the Scripture, committed to expositional preaching, and led by a plurality of elders. We began in the years 2003-2004 to build relationships with “confessional” men and churches, yet something was missing.
Over the next five years from 2003-2011, our elders continued to lead our church in a more “confessional” direction with apparent unity. However, quite subtly and unbeknownst to them, one was becoming more “reformed” while the other was moving in a decidedly non-confessional direction. This “disconnect” within the leadership was revealed during these years at various points, coming to a breaking point in 2011 when one of the elders admitted that while agreeing in principle with the Confession, he did not want it to be the confession of the church. The church having already decided on her confessional position many years prior, the elder left the church, allowing the church to move in a clearer “confessional” direction in holding communion with groups which had previously been held at a distance.
Thus in 2012, the story of the “Second Church” began – the “associational” church. In 2012 Faith Community began a new study of the confession of faith she had adopted some nine years prior. In contrast to our previous brief study of the Confession, this one was to last several years and “reformed” our identity, practice, and associations. In 2012 FCBC was accepted into communion with other confessional churches in the Texas area finding membership in the Texas Area Association of Reformed Baptist Churches. Though our pastor had been blessed by being a part of the planning of TAARBC from the initial meetings reaching back to 2005, we had been prevented from joining due to the disconnect in the leadership. Thus, joining in 2012 was the realization of a long hope and the answer to many years of prayer. Also in 2012, our pastor was able to attend for the first time the ARBCA General Assembly in Chicopee, MA. The following year at Grace Fellowship Church in Bremen, IN our church was formally received into membership in the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America, now our newly “constituted” Confessional Baptist Association.
These new relationships were like a fresh breeze on a once again hurting, hungry, and hopeful congregation. As we studied the confession, grew in our confessional bonds, were nurtured regularly by the means of grace, and strengthened our hearts in the communion we found with our associations, we found peace, increase of love, and mutual edification a reality among our body. During these years the Lord began to grow our small fellowship and establish us doctrinally, numerically, and financially. During these years our pastor also went back to school to pursue doctoral studies in the hopes of being more useful to our own fellowship and other churches as well. We further saw the Lord in his providence establish during this period what now bears the name International Reformed Baptist Seminary. Our church has been able to partner with IRBS, our pastor has found a place among its faculty teaching Church History, and our body has been blessed by having a few of the IRBS students serving as interns through the IRBS structured internship program.
Currently our congregation gathers on the Lord’s Day in the facility of another church. While the provision of a facility is a great blessing, using a facility belonging to another congregation is limiting on the ministry we can do. Primarily, this limits our Lord’s Day gatherings to a Bible Study Hour and corporate worship. In addition to our corporate gatherings on the Lord’s Day, we have a weekly Men’s Book Study that meets throughout the year, except for the summer months. Also, each
month we gather on the first Wednesday of each month for prayer. In this gathering we can bear one another’s burdens as well as pray for you, our sister churches, with whom we stand in gospel-bonds. We have been blessed with our interns and their sharing of some of the preaching and leadership responsibilities. Our pastor enjoys greatly the opportunity to mentor them in pastoral ministry. In addition, we have recently been encouraged to have several men helping out with leading our Sunday Bible Study class. We are praying for the Lord to provide us with additional deacons, and we continue to ask the Lord to raise up or bring to us another man or men to serve alongside our pastor in the eldership.
Looking back on the history of our founding, we would not encourage anyone to start a church like we did. We in no way hold ourselves as an “example” to follow. But the Lord has been merciful to underserving sinners such as us. We have not been treated as our sins deserve and the Lord has been and remains mindful of our frame, that we are but dust. When all is said and done, we are but unprofitable servants of a great and sovereign King. He reigns and we are his humble servants. He guides by his Word and Spirit, and we follow at his command. We are so very thankful to be in gospel-bonds with you, our fellow associational churches. We are full of hope in our good and gracious Lord as we link arms with you for our peace, increase of love, and mutual edification.
Soli Deo Gloria,
Jason Montgomery, Pastor
Faith Community Baptist Church