Welcome to Vance Bible Church in Bristol, TN. We are glad you have made your way to our website. We hope the information here will help you to either become a Christian and/or grow as a Christian.I am Greg Kain the Pastor of Vance with a desire to lift up Jesus through the word of God.
we are an independent Bible Church. We are not connected with any councils or groups.
We are a local church that believes in the inspiration of the Scriptures and the great commission., which tells us to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus has given the local church the authority o be the local church that Jesus first established two thousand years ago. We beleive that we answer o our Lord for evangelizing, growing, and building as Jesus commanded us.
Our church is controlled by the Scriptures and the guidelines set down in the New Testament. We recognize that the final authority for all decisions is the Word of God.
We believe that the local church is the place where we preach and teach the Word of God so that Christians can grow to be the believer's that honor and please the Lord.
In Ephesians 4:11-16 the Apostle Paul gave us the blueprint of the local church. He tells us that Jesus gave pastor/teachers for the maturing of the believers. This passage says that one of the reasons we gather together is so people can be "MENDED". It is the same word used of the Apostle Peter on the shore mending his fishing net. He was making it usable! That is part of the purpose of church services. We need to be mended so that we can be usable for God's kingdom. Then in verse 13 Paul tells us the goal is that believers will become mature in their faith or to put it nother way- to be like Christ!
Why do we do this? In verse 14 Paul said that people can be swayed by false doctrine so they need to hear the Word of God to meet head on the false teaching and not be tossed back and forth by every teaching that is not Biblical.
My favorite verse in this passage is verse 15 that tells beleivers to speak the truth in love so that we will grow in Christ. If all we do is give truth we become legalistic. If all we do is love it tends towards license. We need to be balanced in giving out the truth in love! If we are concerned about both truth and love it will balance our Christian lives. The goal of a local church is to create mature balanced Christians.