ABOUT
The Heritage Reformed Baptist Mission of Cookeville, Tennessee is a church plant under the oversight of the pastors of Grace Baptist Church of Hartsville, TN. The day-to-day ministries of the Mission are shared by Thomas Strong, who is a retired Baptist minister, and Dan Spickard, who is a local Cookeville businessman. HRBM will seek ultimate constitution as a church as the Lord adds converts and doctrinally like-minded believers on the Lord Jesus Christ.
* To live as full-time worshippers of God.
* To meet regularly for corporate worship, prayer, the Lord’s Supper, and instruction from God’s
Word.
* To engage in the kind of fellowship that results in encouraging one another on to love and good
works.
* To grow in personal holiness.
* To proclaim God’s redeeming activity in Jesus Christ through personal evangelism and global
missionary activities.
Heritage Reformed Baptist Mission and its parent church, Grace Baptist Church of Hartsville, Tennessee, do not share the common opinion among many evangelical Christians that doctrine is not important. Rather, we believe doctrine is of paramount importance. What a person and local church believe concerning the whole counsel of God determines that person's or church's understanding of everything involved in true Christianity, and of the lifestyle that person or church lives and promotes. Therefore, HRBM unashamedly believes the Bible is the inspired, infallible Word of God and in its entirety teaches everything a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ needs to know in order to be conformed to His image as every truly born-again Christian is predestined to be.
Under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, HRBM employs two major means of proclaming the whole counsel of God. The first and most important is a Sunday-by-Sunday expository and exegetical preaching of God's Word. The second is teaching a systematic presentation of the doctrines of Scripture embodied in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith. We believe that Confession closely adheres to what is written in Scripture and, therefore, have adopted it as our official Statement of Faith. It can be viewed here.
We also take worship seriously. Worship is acceptable to God when it is reverent, theocentric, and regulated by the Word of God. As a Body of Christ, we worship corporately on Sunday by reading the Scriptures publicly, praying as a congregation, singing both psalms and hymns unto God, and meeting with God through the preached Word of God. Our singing consists largely of the older hymns and psalms, although we sing a few newer compositions that display theological depth.
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE
By God’s grace, we endeavor to take living the Christian life seriously. Correct doctrine must lead to correct living. We emphasize that true holiness is a heart-level matter that involves the Christian’s motives, passions, goals, and desires. Mere outward conformity to a list of prescribed man-made lifestyle standards is inadequate. When the Law of God is indeed inscribed upon the heart, however, the saint’s outward behavior will be quite different from that of the unsaved man. The saint will make his chief end the glorifying of God, whereby he enjoys God both now and forever. With regard to practical day-to-day living, our chief concern is to apply the truth that Abraham Kuyper expressed so well: “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” Thus every believer will devote himself to “kingdom projects” (i.e., Christian service) because Jesus is Lord of the Christian’s time. The believer will also engage in “counter-cultural living,” or living as salt and light in a decaying and dark world. Living as a pilgrim in this world includes applying God’s Word to practical issues like music, courtship, modesty in clothing, children’s education, and observance of the Lord’s Day as the Christian Sabbath. Every area of the Christian’s life must be brought under the lordship of Jesus Christ.
At HRBM, the doctrine of regeneration is of paramount importance. We believe the Holy Spirit transforms a spiritually dead sinner into a new creature in Christ–a saint in whom the power of sin is broken and the Law of God is written upon the heart. True believers will persevere to the end, which means they will grow in grace. Sanctification is not an optional extra for first-class believers; it is an inevitability for all truly redeemed men. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord! Accordingly, chronic spiritual immaturity and stubborn unrepentance is not tolerated. The church takes disciplinary action when–after numerous pleadings and explanations–a member refuses to repent of sin. Church discipline is a multi-purpose tool: God uses it to both bring unrepentant believers back to Himself and maintain the purity of His Church.
Two men comprise the leadership of HRBM. Thomas Strong and Dan Spickard have been commended by Grace Baptist Church of Hartsville, TN to establish the Mission under the oversight and with the continuing counsel of the GBC elders.