We are excited about this opportunity to share wisdom into topics that affect our discipleship from Christian leaders in our area.
Call if you have any questions, please share this opportunity with anyone in the Venango County area who might wish to attend.
The lectures will be livestreamed on the 1st Baptist Facebook page, as well as recorded and uploaded to YouTube (Pastor Powell's channel). The added benefit ,beyond fellowship with fellow followers of Jesus, of being here in-person will be the opportunity to ask questions and dialogue with the speakers.
“Members together of
one body, and sharers together in the promise of Jesus Christ.” – Ephesians 3:6
County-Wide Thanksgiving Service
Sunday, November 24th at 6 PM
Cranberry High School
1 Education Drive, Seneca
Featuring: The praise team from Franklin Church of the Nazarene, Scripture
Readings, Prayers of Thanksgiving, and a message praising God for our unity in
the Body of Christ from Reverend Shawn Clerkin of St. John’s Episcopal Church
of Franklin
This event
is free and open to the public, all are welcome
An offering will be collected to support the food pantries of Franklin,
Oil City, and Seneca
We are happy to be the hosts of this event in November. If you aren't a member of an American Baptist Church, but would like to attend and be blessed by this, just put down "First Baptist of Franklin" for your church on the registration and "French Creek" for the association.
The primary focus of this seminar will be the stories of the places visited by Pastor Powell in May of 2023, featuring the hundreds of photos he and his wife took during their pilgrimage to the Holy Land including: The Sea of Galilee, Jordan River, Cana, Megiddo, Nazareth, Jericho, the Dead Sea, Qumran, Masada, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, and more.
This event is free and open to the public,
no reservations necessary,
and will include time for Q&A
For more information,
please call 814-432-8061
This seminar will be broadcast via Facebook Live on the church’s page for those unable to attend in-person, and subsequently uploaded to YouTube.
The Wednesday evening Bible Study group will begin the Gospel of Luke on 3/22 at 7 PM.
Those able to join us in-person are welcome to attend, this study is for non-Christians interested in learning about the Gospel and God's love for them, new Christians looking to learn more about Jesus' life and ministry and how it impacts their lives, and Christians who have known faith for many years but still have a desire to grow in wisdom. In other words, anyone can join us.
We will look at look verse-by-verse, reading and discussing as we go. Questions are welcomed.
For those not able to attend in-person, the study will air each week on Facebook Live at this page: First Baptist Church where it can be viewed at anytime from 7 PM onward.
Also, for those interested in the audio only, it will be available at Pastor Powell's blog: Bible Study podcasts within a day or two. This site currently has audio recordings of studies for most of the Bible organized in one hour segments from previous weekly groups.
To the Christian community in Venango County, February
2023
Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, as men and women
called by God and entrusted with the responsibility to shepherd the sheep and
protect the flock, it is our responsibility to shout out a warning when
dangerous individuals, groups, or ideas affect our communities and churches.
This is sadly the case with regards to the spread here
locally of Torah Clubs sponsored by the First Fruits of Zion.
While we enthusiastically support deep study of the Bible,
including its Jewish cultural and linguistic roots, all such study should occur
within the framework of a Church history-based orthodoxy, and an apostolic
understanding of the Gospel.
Why do groups associated with the Hebrew Roots Movement, in
general, like the First Fruits of Zion, in particular, fail this test? Our accompanying documentation will
demonstrate from primary sources, in their own words, that the First
Fruits of Zion organization, and the Torah Clubs materials they publish, are
replete with the following theological errors and/or heresies:
1.A non-Trinitarian view of God in the forms of
two ancient heresies rejected by the Early Church: Modalism and
Subordinationism.
2.A substandard hermeneutic {including the use of
paraphrases and word substitutions resulting in more palatable texts} for
interpreting scripture that contends that all relevant passages have been
wrongly understood throughout Church History, and in fact mean nearly the
opposite of what the Church has always taught.
3.A hostility toward the Church which is seen as
the ‘mission field’ in need of correction to bring it back to its supposed
roots as a Torah observant movement within Judaism.
4.That the books of Moses, the Torah, are more
fully the words of God than other portions of holy scripture, making them the
lens through which all scripture must be interpreted. Even Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of God, has
no authority to establish anything beyond the Mosaic Law.
5.That Jesus did not fulfill the Mosaic Law,
rather it is still operative and normative for all of God’s people, Jews and
Gentiles alike.
6.That there is no covenant with the Gentiles,
thus all followers of Jesus Christ accepting the Gospel must be grafted into
Israel by ‘becoming a Jew’ in spirit, and in Torah observance.
7.That on this basis true Christian discipleship
requires the keeping of the Mosaic Law, including the dietary (kosher),
Sabbath, and festival provisions, which is how Christians demonstrate their
love of God.
If the tree is diseased, so will its fruit be. We would warn against the use of bible study materials
produced by the Watchtower Tract Society (JW) or LDS (Mormon) organizations,
even if locally 100% of the parent organization’s theology was not being
adopted. The risk that heretical
teachings would gain a foothold is simply too great. If the desire is to learn from Judaism or
Messianic Judaism, a host of materials from an orthodox point-of-view are
available for Christians to use in our churches, to use that which comes from
the FFOZ is an unnecessary risk, plus a union with an organization whose stated
goals would harm the Church and warp the Gospel.
In the end, while protesting that they do not offer a
works-based salvation, and claiming that faith in Jesus is sufficient, this movement
is built upon and structured around the claim that all faithful Christians will
begin observing the Law of Moses once they become followers of Jesus, that faithful
Christians will, in essence, live like Jews.
They may not outright claim the Law of Moses as the gatekeeper to salvation
and Christian discipleship, but when you make it the gauge of genuine faithfulness
you are adding it to the Gospel message, casting dispersion upon the faith of
99% of the world’s Christians, both past and present, and spreading doubt and
division within the Church. This movement
is no benign appreciation of the scriptures, but rather an aggressively proselytizing
misappropriation of them contrary to the established teachings of Orthodox,
Catholic, and Protestant Churches alike.
Given this, our duty requires that we warn our congregations
against participation in these groups, and call upon those who do so now, and
especially those who are promoting them, to repent and return to the faith our
ancestors rejoiced in as, “you are not under the law, but under grace.”
(Romans 6:12)
By unanimous affirmation of the Franklin Christian Ministerium,
Rev. Shawn Clerkin, Vicar/Pastor, St. John’s Episcopal Church/Grace Lutheran Church, Franklin
Deacon David Betz, St. John’s Episcopal Church, Franklin
Rev. Dr. Darrell L. Greenawalt, Christ United Methodist
Church, Franklin
Rev. Larry A. Myers, Polk Presbyterian Church
Rev. Eric Phillips, Redeemer Anglican Church, Franklin
Pastor Randy Powell, First Baptist Church of Franklin
An update on our Victorian Christmas Concert donation: The total raised for Mustad Seed Missions is $3,178.50.
This total more than triples the previous high that we've been able to achieve through one of our Christmas or Mother's Day concerts. The local generosity is a tremendous blessing to our community.
We are happy to announce that after a two year hiatus, our Christmas Concert series, organized by our own Dennis Geib is returning, complete with many of the favorite performers whose talents we've enjoyed in years past.
Once again, this is a free concert, no tickets or reservations necessary. We will be taking up a collection to support Mustard Seed Missions of Venango County, a local para-church charity that has assisted more than 5,000 families since its inception in 2012.
A three-part
educational discourse created by Pastor Randy Powell
First Baptist Church of Franklin
1041 Liberty St.Franklin, PA
16323
6:00-8:00 PM
Thursday, October 13th, 20th, and 27th
Will
include segments on: The Early Church, Early Heresies regarding the person of
Christ, The Ecumenical Councils, The Great Schism, Monasticism, St. Augustine,
The Crusades, the battle for supremacy between Popes and Emperors, The
Reformation, The 30 Years War, The Modern Missions Movement, and the status of
the Church in the world today.
This event
is free and open to the public, no reservations necessary, and will include
time for Q&A
Recently I was asked by Pastor Charlie Cotherman if there was something about rural ministry that I might write for the Project on Rural Ministry (of Grove City College). After a short period of thinking the obvious choice was to write about the lessons learned from the success of the non-denominational parachurch ministry, Mustard Seed Missions, that I was blessed to be part of the founding and have continued since it began in 2012 as its President.
This event
is free, open to the public, no reservations needed, and will be helpful to
anyone who wants to learn more about the Bible.
It will
also be livestreamed on 1st Baptist Church of Franklin Facebook page
This
seminar will cover the history of the copying, preservation, and translation of
the Bible from the original Greek and Hebrew manuscripts, to the modern English
translations we use today.
