Our Story
Philadelphia Mission Baptist Church (PMBC) was founded on September 18, 2011. PMBC began as a new church plant of our sending church, Antioch Baptist Church (formerly Berkland Baptist Church – BBC). BBC was founded by Pastor Paul Kim and his wife Rebekah in 1981 in Berkeley, California, with a vision to raise leaders for the 21st century and live out His commandments – love God and let the world know his love by our love for one another as the family of God. At PMBC, we strive to carry on God’s rich history and legacy, and show this love to the community here in Philadelphia and beyond.
We desire to live out the calling of being witnesses to the ends of the earth by the words of Acts 1:8: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” We know that God’s grace has brought us to where we are now, and we continue to depend on him to lead our church according to his purpose.
Our Leadership
Our Values
At PMBC, we work to build up God’s church based on biblical models: We view the church as a body, in which all members are connected with each other and to God through Christ, the head. And we regard the church as the family of God, in which all members are related to each other and to God the Father through the blood of Jesus Christ. This ideal of unity and love can become reality when we allow our faith in Jesus Christ to permeate all areas of our lives, from home to school to work.
We are a church that loves to study the Bible, pray, sing, eat, and carry life’s burdens together. We are also committed to letting the world know who Jesus Christ is. Simply put, we strive to obey Jesus’ Great Commandment to love God and love one another (Matthew 22:37-39) and to fulfill His Great Commission to bring his message to the ends of the earth (Matthew 28:19-20).
Our Beliefs
The following beliefs are excerpted from the Baptist Faith and Message.
A complete version is available here.
The Scriptures
The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy.
God
There is one and only one living and true God. …The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being.
God the Father
God as Father reigns with providential care over His universe, His creatures, and the flow of the stream of human history according to the purposes of His grace. …God is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
God the Son
Christ is the eternal Son of God. In His incarnation as Jesus Christ, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. …He honored the divine law by His personal obedience, and in His substitutionary death on the cross, He made provision for the redemption of men from sin.
God the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, fully divine. …He exalts Christ. He convicts men of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. …He enlightens and empowers the believer and the church in worship, evangelism, and service.
Man
Man is the special creation of God, in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. …By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. … The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore every person of every race possesses dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.
Salvation
Salvation involves the redemption of the whole man, and is offered freely to all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, who by His own blood obtained eternal redemption for the believer. In its broadest sense salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification.
God’s Purpose of Grace
Election is the gracious purpose of God, according to which He regenerates, justifies, sanctifies, and glorifies sinners. …All true believers endure to the end. Those whom God has accepted in Christ, and sanctified by His Spirit will never fall away from the state of grace, but shall persevere to the end.
The Church
A New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous local congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel, observing the two ordinances of Christ, governed by His laws, exercising the gifts, rights, and privileges invested in them by His Word, and seeking to extend the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Our Distinctives
How we live out our faith
Word of God
What is the most important thing in our church? PMBC is committed first and foremost to studying and living out the Word of God. In a world that operates according to programs and agendas, we are tempted, like the busy-body Martha, to forget the most important thing. At PMBC, we are reminded that we need to be like Mary, who sat and listened with reverence and delight at Jesus’ feet, before we actively serve like Martha.
PMBC is committed to the study and teaching of God’s word through devotional time, Bible studies, Sunday School, Sunday messages, seminars, retreats and discipleship training for personal growth and for the purposes of training and evangelism.
