52 thoughts on “FWOTW: Mount Carmel Baptist Church”

  3. Since the Fall Festival page hasn’t been updated since 2007, either, it begs the question, how NEW is the pastor? 😀

    1. The bottom of the homepage says it was last updated in 2009 so my guess is not all that new.

  4. Q. What must I do to be saved?

    A. Confess to God that you are a sinner, believe that Jesus died on the cross (to save you from your sins) and arose three days later, and invite Jesus into your heart as your personal savior.

    Hmmm…that’s little different than Paul’s explanation of Salvation. My eye’s have been opened more and more how Fundies (mostly) do EXACTLY what they accuse Satan of – subtly changing Scripture. They do it to suit their own paradigm. Further, they will rant about every paraphrase out there, but do it all of the time from the pulpit – which ITSELF has no biblical basis.

    1. The way they present the “plan of salvation” resembles witchcraft rather than Christianity.

      Do this, mix it with this, then stir.. and voilà! Salvation.

    2. I was discussing this with my wife on Sunday. We were cleaning out an old cupboard and found thousands of gospel tracts. But all of them were either humanistic (“Do you want to go to heaven”), or based on fear (“You are going to Hell!”). There were a few decent ones that we kept, but the majority of them were binned. I kept thinking, why are all of these focused on our sin, and the only bit about Jesus is tacked on at the end. None of them mentioned God’s love, except when they quoted John 3:16 in passing. All of them were directed towards “the decision”, and none of them about who God is and how much He loves and forgave us.

      One of the tracts was called “Man’s Most Asked Question” and it turned out the question was “How do I go to heaven”. I doubt that is what most people are asking. Most people are thinking, in God terms, “Who is God?”, “Why is God?”, “Where is God?”.

      You are right – the gospel is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. I also believe that confession is needful, and the invitation in 1 John 1:9 is for unbelievers to confess to God, who will cleanse them from ALL unrighteousness 🙂 But I don’t find some “prayer”, or some checklist you have to believe in order.

      Nothing frustrates me more than reading a good gospel presentation and have it end in an invitation that goes like this

      1) Now you need to admit you are a sinner. Have you done that? Good.
      2) Now you need to repent of all your sins. This means turn away from them and try not to do them again. Done? Good. (as if).
      3) Now you need to confess all of that to God. Take your time. Name all of your sins.
      4) Now BELIEVE, BELIEVE, BELIEVE as hard as you can. It won’t work unless you really mean it. Also, here are some words to say as you try to mean them.
      5) It’s not over yet – Join a church, be baptized, read your Bible every day, and examine your works always to make sure you are saved because a real Christian will do all of these things.

      Where is Jesus in that?

      1. I hate it when people tell me that I am not truly saved because I did not use the right formula. It is not my fault no one told me I had to ask for forgiveness BEFORE accepting Jesus and I had to pray some prayer and ask first. Silly ignoralt 8 year old me letting Jesus willy nilly into my heart when He asked rather than following the exact formula. I thought making the decision and beleaving was all I had to do and God would do the rest, and he did. Stop it God, you did not do it right, do over.

  5. Romans 10:9-10 “Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

    OK, I’m not a fundy (hence the ESV). But actually, that IS what Paul says.

    1. @ Jeremy, that’s EXACTLY my point! Paul: confess Jesus is Lord.

      FWOTW: confess you’re a SINNER.

      Paul: believe in your heart God raised him from the dead.

      FWOTW: believe that Jesus died on the cross (to save you from your sins)

      And, Paul omits (the whole BIBLE omits) both “invite Jesus into your heart” AND “as your personal savior”.

      1. Got it. I was prepared to forgive them a little evangelical semantics, but now that you point it out I see the man-centeredness.

        1. @ Jeremy, I give you complete absolution. 😉

          Just kidding – it’s EXTREMELY subtle. I’ve become quite attuned to it lately, though, and I now look for all of the absolute error being passed off as truth.

        2. and the adding of those two phrases is the difference in “Witnessing” and “Soul Winning.” In “Witnessing” all the power unto salvation rests squarely on the work of the Holy Spirit. In “Soul Winning” all the power rests squarely on the ability of the Soul Winner to get someone to make a decision. (and the so-called soul winner doesn’t have to worry if the responder is sincere so long as they themselves are sincere.) If we want to talk about blood on anyone’s hands… How about all of those who are just like I was until the Lord saved me, who have a form of religion without the power of Jesus Christ unto salvation. Who will stand before God and say “Lord, Lord, haven’t I….” only to have him say, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”
          “But Lord, I prayed a prayer.. I prayed the prayer the soul winner prayed…” I’m awfully afraid the Lord will answer,”…and I’ll deal with him/her in just a minute…”

        3. Another unbiblical phrase is “accept Jesus as your savior”. Only problem is … every use of “accept” in Scripture has it as God accepting man, not the other way around.

    1. Also missing the obligatory old hymnals in midi format blasted at you as soon as you enter the page.

  7. At first I was thinking “wow, look at all that snow”! it must be COLD where this church is located. But, it’s even better, it’s all the heavenly clouds.

    Is every service like a “meeting in the air”?? 🙂

  8. I think that whole area of the country is stuck back in the 1990’s. Follow the link at the bottom to the company that designed the web site, then on to other sites they’ve designed.

    In fact, Pine Ridge Baptist Church decided that site was so good they wanted the same one! http://fortpayne.net/pineridge/

    1. Maybe this is because they are a satellite of Mount Carmel. From their “About Us” page – Pine Ridge was started in May 1965 as a Mission of Mount Carmel Baptist Church with the Rev. Jerry Pope as the Pastor.

      1. That can’t be! IFB churches have no connection to each other. There’s no network. Or so the IFB loyalists keep telling us. 😕

      1. Ha! No offense intended, Brendt. I was referring to the city this church is in, since their web site is as bad as the church’s. But not knowing anything else about that city…yeah, it was a sweeping statement. But I used to live in a small (pop. 1100) town…you gotta admit there’s not exactly a huge market for web designers in areas like that.

        1. Upon which I actually google “fort payne, alabama” and find out that fortpayne.net is not the city’s web site. 😳

    1. Move to San Diego. Went out there for a week of training in June…man, if I didn’t have a brand-new house and a brand-new mortgage to go along with it, I’m not sure I would have come back.

      1. San Diego is where I live. And it is really great. But the taxes are absolutely insane. We do pay dearly for the privelige of living in such a nice climate.

  10. The site goes along with a tenant of the IFB “old fashion” – music, preaching. So why not add websites?

    Maybe the webmaster is so busy winning souls, he doesn’t have time to update. Or maybe they are using it as a scare tactic to make people think the “rapture” happened and we are left behind.

  11. So, the church has two identical buildings, and they are situated at a 45 degree angle to each other, halfway up a mountain of mashed potatoes?

    3. ROFL! 😀 :mrgreen: 😆

      That is one ugly website. The only redeeming quality that I can see is that it doesn’t have any flashing .GIFs.

  12. Love that church motto that appears on their front page.

    “A place of hope and redemption”? Nope.
    “Proclaiming the good news of the Gospel”? Nope.

    “Worth the drive”? BINGO!

  13. They put the weather forecast for Heaven and called it perfect! What if perfect to me means 3 feet of powder and some skiis????

    1. The clouds look so pouffy and fun! I feel like I’m looking out of the window of an airplane or something.

    2. I think a real fundy would have also put up the weather forecast for hell.

      A thousand degrees, brimstone and no chance of rain.

      2. Except for the brimstone, that’s been the weather forecast here in south Texas all summer.

  14. The link for watching the church choir… When you find the choir videos, don’t watch them. Unless you’re into mid-morning coma-inducing singing. 😕

  15. Okay, maybe I’ve reached a healthy level in my fundy recovery or perhaps I’ve finally reached the complete state of psychosis, but sites like this tickle me now. I mean, someone somewhere is so very proud of his webmastering abilities. :mrgreen:

    I can’t dog the people too much. They do have a Braves fan in their mix. 😉

  16. Their choir videos just made me smile.. they really did. I love how everyone in the choir (all 10 with 1 loud alto) has THEIR space and they DON’T crunch together.

    I think I’ll make them butt cushions, but I have a feeling they’ve beat me to it.

  17. Wow! Two churches featured this week that I preached at back in the day…………………this one and the one with the guilt-inducing sign. I am experiencing whatever the opposite of nostalgia is.

  19. There is…a lot going on with these pages.

    Sort of reminds me of those personal buildpage sites that I made a couple of back in the early 2000s.

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