ABOUT US
Our Beliefs
I. The Scriptures
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter.
II. God
There is one and only one living and true God. He is an intelligent, spiritual, and personal Being, the Creator, Redeemer, Preserver, and Ruler of the universe. God is infinite in holiness and all other perfections.
A. God the Father
God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace.
B. God the Son
Christ is the eternal Son of God. In His incarnation as Jesus Christ He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God, taking upon Himself human nature with its demands and necessities and identifying Himself completely with mankind yet without sin.
C. God the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, fully divine. He inspired holy men of old to write the Scriptures. Through illumination He enables men to understand truth.
III. Man
Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation.
IV. Salvation
Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. There is no salvation apart from personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.
Our History
In 1900, the Millville Immanuel Baptist Church was founded. Millville, a sawmill town, was a little more than a year old.
The nearest Baptist church was St. Andrew, which had been founded in April, 1894. Several Millville residents were members of the St. Andrew Baptist Church, but transportation to St. Andrew was difficult and slow with a boat which was more frequently used than a horse and buggy. The town of Millville had become large enough to support a church of its own.
Seeing the need of a church, sixteen dedicated residents of Millville who were members of the St. Andrew church asked for letters of dismission from the church. They met in the Millville school house on August 27, 1900, to organize a Baptist church for Millville.
In April of 1937, the name of the church was changed to Immanuel Baptist Church in order that new people coming to the county with the advent of the Paper Mill would feel that they were welcomed in the church even though they might live in another community of the county.
Five missions were constituted through Immanuel. These were the First Baptist Church of Parker (1943), Springfield Baptist (1943), Cedar Grove Baptist (1955), First Baptist Church of Panama City Beach (1967) and First Baptist, Green Hills, Fountain (1978).
Our Beliefs
We affirm the Holy Bible as the inspired Word of God and the basis for our beliefs. We subscribe to the doctrinal statement of The Baptist Faith and Message as adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention in 2000. We voluntarily band ourselves together as a body of baptized believers in Jesus Christ personally committed to sharing the good news of salvation to lost mankind. The ordinances of the church are Believer’s Baptism and The Lord’s Supper.