Our Pastors

There is one God. He is the God of all creation that Paul describes in Acts 17: 23-31. He eternally exists in three persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. All three are equal, however all three have separate roles. Ultimately, as each One performs their role, the triune God-head seeks to see all mankind come to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, the Son.
We believe that Jesus Christ is God’s only begotten Son. He is both God and man (Mathew 1:22-23). He was born of a virgin. He lived a sinless human life and was tempted in all points as we are so that He could sympathize with our weaknesses (Hebrews 4:15). He offered himself as the perfect sacrifice for the sins of all man-kind, by paying the penalty for sin with His life on the cross (Romans 3:23). Now He sits at the right hand of the Father as our Great High Priest, our Advocate with the Father, to continually offer mercy in our time of need (1 John 2:1-2). We continue the work as His body here in the flesh until He returns someday to reign as King of Kings and Lord of Lords (John 14:3). We also believe that after Jesus ascended to Heaven that He fulfilled the promise that He wouldn’t leave us alone (John 14:16). He promised to send the Holy Spirit to be our divine helper, spiritual guide, counselor and comforter. He lives in every Christian who believes in Jesus Christ and has Faith with works. He provides the power to walk in a Godly manner and not fulfill the lust of the flesh, and provides all believers with spiritual gifts with which to serve. As Christians, we seek daily to live under His control, to be pleasing to God

Salvation is God’s free gift to us. The Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory (Romans 3:23). It also says that sin is transgression of God’s law (1 John 3:4). The penalty for breaking this law (or committing sin) is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through His son Jesus (Romans 6:23). We receive this gift by repentance and faith in Jesus alone! Repentance means we choose to turn away from our sin and turn toward Christ. Faith means trusting in full assurance that Christ paid the penalty for our sins on the cross, and we have a full assurance that just as God raised Jesus from the dead, He will also give us eternal life as well (Romans 8:11, Romans 10:9-13). When we place our faith in Jesus Christ, His perfect obedience is credited to us so that God sees us as the righteousness of Christ. Every person who is truly saved is eternally secure in the Lord Jesus Christ and will spend eternity in Heaven, while those who die in their sins will spend eternity in Hell.

We believe that all Scripture is divinely inspired and serves as the final authority in all matters of belief and Christian conduct (2 Timothy 3:16-17, 2 Peter 1:20-21). We believe the Bible is the only and final word of God until Jesus returns (Galatians 1:8-9, Revelations 22:18-19) and should be used to try the spirit and know it’s of God (1 John 4:1). The scriptures are essential to the fulfilling of the mission and purpose of Jesus Christ and His body of believers.

Each person is able to come to God for himself or herself. There is no need for a third party to tell a person how to pray, how to interpret scriptures or how to vote in church. All believers are ministers of God. Therefore, the church does not have a High Priest other than Jesus Christ. All members are made “priests unto God” by the death of Christ. The church is a holy priesthood chosen by God to offer up spiritual sacrifices. There is only one mediator between God and man, and that is Jesus Christ (Hebrews 4:14-16, 1 Peter 2:9-10, Revelations 1:5-6, 1 Timothy 2:5).

Christian Baptism is the full immersion of a believer into water. It is an act of obedience symbolizing the believers faith in a crucified, buried and risen Savior, the believers death to sin, the burial of that life, and the resurrection to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:1-14). While we do not believe that baptism is essential to salvation (Ephesians 2:4-9) we also do not believe it is something that should be put off. We are commanded to be baptized into Jesus Christ. We believe in teaching this ordinance as soon as someone accepts Christ and performing the ordinance at the earliest time possible (Acts 8:36, Acts 10:47-48, Acts 16:33, Acts 9:18, Acts 22:16).

The Lords’ Supper is an ordinance that Jesus Christ put into place on the same night he was betrayed. It is a ceremonial supper to be taken as often as we do it in remembrance of Jesus and the sacrifice He made. As often as we partake of it, we “proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes”  (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).

We believe that Christ’s people should organize themselves not only with a particular body of believers, but that each body of believers should also organize themselves with other bodies of the same mission and purpose. Wales Baptist Church does this by being actively involved in the Giles County Baptist Association, made up of a majority of the Southern Baptist churches in Giles County, Tennessee, USA.  (Leviticus 26:7-8, Deuteronomy 32:30, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12) This association is made up of and supports missionaries and ministries at home and around the world.