ABOUT US
SERVICES
EBC live services - Services will be live streamed at 10:00 am and 17:30 pm on Sundays
OUR PURPOSE
The Emmaus Baptist Church exist to glorify God by making disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ of all nations. Committed to making known the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and proclaiming His Word in our community and the world. Our prayer is that men, women and children from every walk of life will come to the knowledge and grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We want all who attend to learn of the salvation and of the hope that is found in Jesus Christ.
At Emmaus Baptist Church, you will find that God and His Word are taken seriously as the key to true life and joy—now and eternally. Our desire is to be a place where God’s grace and presence is tangible, and where the Holy Spirit is powerfully working to transform believers and convert unbelievers through the preaching and teaching of the Word. May our Lord be pleased to dwell with us by the Holy Spirit.
The Emmaus Baptist Church ministers to the individual as well as the entire family by proclaiming truth and equipping the saints to do the work of the ministry. We offer something for each person in the home.
HISTORY
The Emmaus Baptist Church began as a Sunday school in 1982 meeting in someone’s garage.
Soon the work became too big and moved to another home where in 1985 an evening service was begun and on 19 October 1986 the Emmaus Baptist Church was constituted.
Space became a problem once again and the fellowship moved appropriately to the stables at Rooihuiskraal Terrain and later to Froggies Nursery School.
In 1991 the congregation moved one more time into the buildings erected on the present site in Maraboe Avenue, Rooihuiskraal where the church continues to meet.
BELIEFS
We hold to the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith as the official declaration of faith (a summary of what we believe the Scriptures to teach) for conduct and teaching. We believe that the Church should clearly define and express their faith and stand for what they believe. (For a online copy of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith click here.)
While we do not expect and require that all candidates for membership hold to the Baptist Confession of Faith as a matter of personal conviction, at the least every candidate should be able to commit themselves to the teaching and the fellowship as a matter of church order.
The Short Declaration of Faith serves as a core summary of what we believe to be the clear teaching of Scripture. Every member and prospective member is expected to hold these core beliefs as a matter of personal conviction.
-
We believe the Bible to be the complete Word of God, that the sixty-six books, as originally written, comprising the Old and New Testaments were verbally inspired by the Spirit of God and were entirely free from error; that the Bible is sufficient and the final authority in all matters of faith and practice and the true basis of Christian union.
-
We believe in one God, Creator of all, holy, sovereign, eternal, existing in three equal Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
-
We believe in the absolute and essential deity of Jesus Christ, in His eternal existence with the Father in pre-incarnate glory, in His virgin birth, true humanity, sinless life, substitutionary death, bodily resurrection, triumphant ascension, mediatory ministry and personal return.
-
We believe in the absolute and essential deity and personality of the Holy Spirit who convicts of sin, of righteousness, and of judgement, who regenerates, sanctifies, illuminates, comforts and abides in all who believe in Jesus Christ.
-
We believe that Satan exists as an evil personality, the originator of sin, the arch-enemy of God and man.
-
We believe that man was divinely created in the image of God; that he sinned, becoming guilty before God, resulting in total depravity, thereby incurring physical and spiritual death.
-
We believe that none but those who exercise repentance from sin and faith in the lord Jesus Christ shall be saved, and that salvation is by the sovereign grace of God; that by the appointment of the Father, Christ voluntarily suffered a vicarious expiatory and propitiatory death; that justification is by faith alone in the all-sufficient sacrifice and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and that those whom God has effectually called shall be divinely perfected in the image of the Lord.
-
We believe in the personal, bodily and glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ; in the resurrection of the just and unjust; in the eternal blessedness of the redeemed and in the judgement and conscious, eternal punishment of the wicked.
-
We believe that the local Church is a company of believers who have been baptized, called out from the world, separated unto the Lord Jesus, voluntarily associated for the ministry of the Word, the mutual edification of its members, the propagation of the faith and the observance of the ordinances. We believe it is an autonomous body in a particular locality, exercising its own divinely awarded gifts, precepts and privileges under the Lordship of Christ, the Head of the Church. We believe that its officers are Pastors (Elders) and Deacons.
-
We believe that there are two ordinances for the Church regularly observed in the following order:
-
Baptism, which is the immersion of the believer in water, whereby the believer obeys Christ’s command and sets forth the washing away of sins and the believer’s identification with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection
-
The Lord’s Supper, which is the memorial wherein the believer partakes of the two elements, bread and wine which symbolizes the Lord’s body and shed blood proclaiming His death until He comes again.
-
-
We believe that God has ordained marriage as a heterosexual relationship between a natural man and a natural woman.
Why is it necessary to confess our faith corporately?
(read this article from 9MArks by Gregg R Allison )
What does it mean to be a Confessional Reformed Baptist?
(read this article from Founders Ministries by Tom Hicks)
Why is local church membership necessary?
(read this article from Founders Ministries by Paul M. Taylor)
FOR A PDF DOCUMENT OF THE BAPTIST CATECHISM (click here)
FOR A PDF DOCUMENT OF THE WEEKLY READING PLAN ,(click here).
Download a Membership Application Form
Download Emmaus Baptist Church's Constitution
Download Knowing the Living God workbook from HeartCry Website
LEADERSHIP
The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, and able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.
(1 Timothy 3:1-7)
Pastor Hennie van Niekerk is the full-time pastor-teacher of The Emmaus Baptist Church since March 2020. He hails originally from a farm in the Schweizer-Reneke district a small farming community known as Migdol.
Hennie is married to Lida van Niekerk and they have two daughters and a son.
He obtained a Bachelor of Theology degree (BTH) from John Wycliffe Theological College in Co-Operation with North West University Potchefstroom and a Masters of Arts degree in Theology (MATS) also from John Wycliffe Theological College in Co-Operation with Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.
Hennie is committed to Expository preaching as well as Confessional Reformed Baptist values.