Expert: Tom Smith - 1/18/2005

Question
Dear Toms777, Myself and my wife are interested in visiting a new church. There was a pamplet left on our door about this new Baptist Church. We have not attended church for many years and feel that we should offer our services and Thanks to God through a Church.
Here are my questions:
I called the number on the pamplet and talked to Pastor Hiebert. He is providing Worship services out of a home until as he put it, they can locate a suitable building to rent. In your opinion is this okay ?
Is there some way you know of to check a Pastors credentials ?
Here is some more info if it will help:
The church name is-- Scriptual Baptist Church
The church is located in a home in Glendale Arizona.
The Pastors name is Jake Hiebert
I found a pastor by the same name on a google search but he has since passed away. So it could not be him. I also do not know this Pastors middle name.
I need your christian / spiritual help. "Please"
Finally, should I even be worrying or investigating a Pastors credential. I have a good feeling about this man "but" I have not met him personally.
Ron  

Answer
An interesting question.

First, should you be checking out the credentials? I would say that today, each and every Christian needs to be very cautious about the church that they choose to attend. Even churches in the same denomination may not be equally good because the leadership may simply not be properly focused at one or more churches. By focused, I mean focused on the cross of Jesus Christ and the true gospel.

I have not previously searched for the credentials of a pastor, so I cannot give you guidance on that, but I do think that it is important to check out the pastor and the leadership of the church, and the teachings of the church. There is so much that I could say, but here are some of the things that I would look for when checking out the church/pastor and leadership.

1) Doctrine: How does their doctrine align with scripture? be as the Bereans (Acts 17:10-11) and search the scriptures to see if what they say is true.All Christians shouldbe doing this in any case. I would recommend that you investigate key doctrines by listening to a couple of sermons, and interviewing the pastor. Also check out their doctrinal statement.

2) How do their actions align with scripture - ie.e do they reflect the fruit of the spirit.

3) Do they believe that the pastor is accountable to teh congregation and to God or do they believe that the pastor has apostolic authority and must be obeyed (get away from any church which teaches the latter).

I have one concern about the name of this church, though you will need to verify whether the concern is valid for this specific church or whether the name is coincidental.

The concern is that many churches named "Scriptural Baptist Churches" appear to hold to apostolic beliefs (i.e. the pastor is the ultimate authority in the church and is to be obeyed).

They also appear to believe that in order to be a member of the church and perhaps even to be saved, one must be baptized using the right words, and the baptism must be perform by a pastor who is properly ordained by their rules. Lastly, they believe that only the local church is the body of Christ, whereas the word used for church in scripture is ekklesia, which means called out ones. Thus the one true church is the body of Christ, not the local organization.

Churches which teach this would be ones to avoid. I would strongly recommend that you check to see if these beliefs are held by this church and if so, then the pastor's credentials would be irrelevant.

We are taught to test every spirit. I have a document on my website which helps in testing the spirits and may be of some use as your are assessing whether this church is sound:

http://www.geocities.com/smithtj.geo/testing.html

Please feel free to ask follow-up questions if I can help further.