What We Believe
Our congregation is composed of biblically hungry men and women who want to make a difference in this community for Christ and His kingdom. We affirm the 1689 London Baptist Confession, and are a part of the G3 Church Network.
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We are a community of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. We hold to the inerrancy of the Scriptures both the Old and New Testaments. We believe the Bible is the word of God. Our church life and individual lives are committed to following Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture. Pastor Dean is an expository Bible preacher and teacher. We are here to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with our community and around the world.
Our congregation is composed of biblically hungry men and women who want to make a difference in this community for Christ and His kingdom. We affirm the 1689 London Baptist Confession, and are a part of the G3 Church Network.
We believe God is spreading the good news through His church. As such, evangelism is a primary focus in our ministries:
• We are presently developing a pregnancy center to service four surrounding counties;
• We are very active in sending out our people for short term and long term mission trips and financial support to missions in Nicaragua, Senegal, the Philippians, and Papua New Guinea;
• We are active in street evangelism in Lewisburg being out there 3-4 times every week proclaiming God's word.
• ECC has supported home-schooling and most of our families are home-schooled.
• We are active members and the center for WV For Life, Greenbrier County, WV.
• Men's and Women's Bible studies;
• Women's weekly sewing ministry for local hospitals and resource centers (Sonshine Quilters)
• Weekly all church fellowship supper and prayer;
• Pastor Dean's daily "Truth Matters" devotional sent via email.
• Weekly "Moms in Prayer" prayer group
12-16-23 - Neighborhood Canvassing meet at ECC 12 noon
12-17-23 - Christmas, The Deliverer Has Come 10:30 AM
12-24-23 - Christmas, The Birth of the King 10:30 AM
12-24-23 - Christmas Eve The Story Unveiled 6 PM
1-6-24 - Greenbrier Pregnancy Center Board Training 9 AM-4 PM at ECC
1-15-24 - Greenbrier Pregnancy Center Committee Meeting (election of officers) 6 PM
Pastor Dean has served as Pastor of Emmanuel Community church since 2000. He is committed to expositionally preaching and teaching God's word. His passion is what is expressed in Colossians 1:28-29 ---"28 Him we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. 29 For this purpose I also labor, striving according to His working, which He works in me in power."
Pastor Dean was married to Jane Ann Pringle for 40 years, until she passed away in 2009. Together they raised four children: Heather, Laura, Amanda, and Clint. Currently, he is married to Gloria June Harper. Although he initially considered pursuing veterinary medicine, he felt called to follow God's leading to a preaching/teaching ministry.
Pastor Dean has worked as a college and university manuscript representative for Prentice Hall Publishing Company, he served as an assistant dean in the School of Business at the University of Wisconsin for 3.5 years, he also served as the Administrator of a Cleveland region Christian High School for 5 years. He has 35 years of pastoral experience.
His educational background includes a B.S. from the University of Illinois in Behavioral Neurology, an M.A. in Counseling from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and an M.Div. from Grace Theological Seminary.
Pastor Brdlik has been affiliated with various church organizations, including: Conservative Baptist, Independent Fundamental Churches of America, Southern Baptist Conference, and presently the G3 Network .
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What constitutes a valuable, dependable soldier? God inspired the Apostle Paul to write: “No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier.” (2 Timothy 2:4) We have been reminded time and time again about allowing the details of life to become more important to us than serving God. But the second part of that verse is what we focus on today...namely, the discipline of our spiritual life. Without that discipline we will not be valuable or dependable soldiers of Christ. In other words, unless we place our time with Lord through prayer, Scripture, and worship of utmost importance, we can never expect our Lord to be pleased with our service...and His pleasure should be our priority. What happens when we become lax with these spiritual disciplines, we can become distorted and confused about our success as kingdom soldiers. “Success” is not determined by numbers or the lack of them. Success is determined by bring joy to God through our humble submission to His design, and that design is only discovered by our deepening relationship with Him.
Left to ourselves, this is a difficult lesson to embrace. We've been taught numbers are most important whether they be GPA, salary, attendance, conversions.... But when it's all over, Jesus informs us of an interesting outcome: “But many who are first will be last; and the last, first.” (Matthew 19:30) It's His way of saying, don't be enamored by numbers. They are not necessarily indicators of success, but rather, one's heart and commitment to Lord. He'll take care of the numbers, our job is to stay sensitive and committed to His voice through spiritual discipline. My prayer for you and me today is summed up in the lyrics of this song:
Make me Your vessel
Make me an offering
Make me whatever You want me to be
I came here with nothing
But all You have given me
Jesus, bring new wine out of me
Walk with the King today and be a blessing.
As we grow in our Christian lives there are certain servants of God that make indelible impacts on our lives...Pastors, teachers, educators that we have learned to trust and even become dependent upon to teach us God's word. I have at least six such Bible teachers that I rely upon often...most likely, so do you. The problem comes when we begin to rely upon them rather than getting alone with God and His Word and seeing for ourselves what God is revealing to us . An additional problem comes when God takes these trusted Bible teachers away from us through death or perhaps other circumstances. We may feel a void because we have depended upon their feeding us for a long time. Believers must understand a weaning process that must take place. We thank God for these teachers, but we must not prioritize them over going into the Scriptures to seek God's ways for ourselves. A sort of “weaning” process should be taking place. Webster defines “weaning” as: “to detach from a source of dependence.” Faithful Bible teachers are a gift from God, but they are to deflect from themselves and direct us to a deeper personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. Faithful Bible teachers must be seen as men like John the Baptist, “I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘make straight the way of the Lord.” “This One is He who comes after me, of whom I am not worthy to untie the strap of His sandal.” (John 1:23-27)
We must always be careful not to lock unto the teachings of a man rather than seeking God's face through our own Bible study and prayer. Sometimes I think we just get lazy and depend upon someone else's study and work rather than doing the heavy lifting of personal Bible study “accurately handling the Word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). My prayer for you and me this day is this: Lord, we are so thankful that You have brought faithful expositors of Your word into our lives. We have grown in our knowledge of You through them. But we realize that we must take on the personal responsibility of standing on our own...being “weaned”...and learning from You personally through Your word. To that end we pray and we will commit ourselves to “Be diligent to present ourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed” (2 Timothy 2:15). Amen
Walk with the King today and be a blessing.