A little about Independent Bible Church

[Editorial Note: This post appeared on my other blog on 10/30/11.  I'm just moving it over here to put all posts that are a good fit for this blog in one place.]

Now that I have posted something about a guest pastor, some of you may be wondering where I am attending church.  We (I and my family of three) have been at Independent Bible Church, Port Angeles now since about 2009.  You can check it out here.  For a long time we were not able to attend regularly or be very involved because of my work schedule.  Even now it is difficult since it is about a 28 minute drive away for us in Sequim.  But we think we like it better than anything closer.  Some folks come from as far as Quilcene to go there; now that's quite a drive.  It is a rather large church, attendance typically ranging 7-800 per week but split up among three services.

It was apparently started in 1888 by a group of eight men who thought Port Angeles needed a Christ-centered, bible-believing church.  I think that is pretty amazing that what was started so long ago has been blessed to grow to its current size.  IBC declares itself to be self-governing and free of any ecclesiastical authority.  I may comment more on that later, but for now I'll just say I think that is just fine by me.  Scripture never said we have to have all these denominations with complex structures of church government.  On certain matters that divide congregations, it claims a neutral stance, although I feel paedobaptists are very few if any here.  Another subject for a future post.

We really like Pastor Mike, who preaches most of the sermons.  He has a splendid expository preaching style and preaches right through books of the Bible, delivering a clear and profound message without a lot of distracting stories and topical studies.  I appears he may be retiring or semi-retiring soon; I'm not certain.  We also go to a Sunday school class which has been of a more topical nature.  We are not yet members at IBC, but I think that may be in our rather near future, probably.  If you are ever in Port Angeles or just passing through, we welcome you to come and visit IBC with us.