866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org
An announcement of the IB Friends International church directory was during their recent conference. Pastor Bobby Mitchell of Brunswick, Maine, said that during one of the broadcasts that he heard “it was stated that ‘thousands’ had ‘registered’ their churches and ministries at the IBFI website.”
When he examined the website he found that his church was listed without his knowledge, and that no one in the church had “registered” it with the IB Friends. He said, “I also noticed several other churches that were ‘registered’ that had not been ‘registered’ by anyone associated with those churches. The more I read the stranger it became as I looked at listings of churches that no longer exist, the names of pastors who are now in heaven, and the names of pastors who have moved to a different church.”
Pastor Mitchell says that when he spoke with a staff member at Crown College about having their church removed from the directory “he apologetically stated that, in fact, they had built the majority of the directory from other existing church directories that were created and owned by other groups.”
This is duplicity, and a loud public apology should be made in regard to the directory.
The Way of Life Literature Church Directory was created with much labor over many years, and not just anyone can get on our list. We began it for the express purpose of helping friends of the ministry find churches that are like minded with our position. For years prior to starting the directory I had received requests from readers of my material inquiring if I knew of like minded churches in their areas. I started the directory to provide a list of any such churches that we learned of. A few years ago we developed an extensive questionnaire that churches are required to fill out before being added to our directory. There are large numbers of independent Baptist churches that we cannot recommend, and we turn churches down every week from being added to our list.
In addition to Bobby Mitchell, I have heard from several other pastors who have found that their churches were listed in the Independent Baptist Friends directory without their knowledge or permission, and these are men who expressly DO NOT support the IB Friends agenda.
I am certain that there are many other churches on the Way of Life directory that would not appreciate being lifted from our directory and placed into a list of "Friends."
We would encourage you to search their directory and see if your church was placed on this list without your knowledge or permission. If so, you can write to ask to have them remove it.
http://baptistfriends.org
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