About Us

FBC Waynesboro is a conservative evangelical body of believers committed to the inerrancy, infallibility and full sufficiency of the Bible. We believe that the church exists in the world to bear witness to the world for the glory of God to the Lordship of Jesus through biblically directed worship and biblically defined evangelism, discipleship, and missions. We believe that Jesus is the sole and exclusive way to salvation who rules and reigns as Lord over the world both in and also through His church. We are committed to expository preaching and teaching of the Word of God which most often is done by preaching through Biblical books. We are an elder led and deacon served people operating in a congregational context. Our Elders give direction to the spiritual life of the church: direction, doctrine and discipline. Our Deacons give direction to the practical operation of the church: buildings and budgets etc. We join together in seeking to pray for and provide proper care to the members of our church. We believe that the Bible ought to direct everything we are and do and we place it at the center of every ministry. We believe that we are worship and work as a church in a way that is not at all defined by the world or directed by the desires of the world, but determined exclusively by what the Word of God says we are to be as a church. We believe in regenerate church membership. We believe that the church as long as we are in this world is a community of sinners being saved by the grace of God and seeking to learn together what it means to live our lives in obedience to the Word of God under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

History, Heritage, Hope

The Waynesboro Baptist Church was birthed in January of 1880. We first gathered in meeting space provided for us by the First United Methodist Church of Waynesboro. We have been in several different buildings since we occupied our first building but always in the same general location. Our church has been served by various pastors through her many years. She gained early on and has sought to maintain a genuine commitment to missions. We have served through the years as a part of our local Hephzibah Baptist Association as well as our State and National Convention. Our name was changed from the Waynesboro Baptist Church to First Baptist Waynesboro somewhere between 1928-1930. Our fundamental theological identity was reformed, refashioned and reframed in the early 1990’s. Southern Baptists in the USA came under the influence of theological liberalism in the 1950’s. It was by the middle of the 1960’s the primary approach in almost all of our seminaries. Most men who were coming out of our seminaries into our churches were strongly influenced by theological liberalism. It began to have a serious impact on our churches. A conservative resurgence, as it was called; emerged in the SBC in the late 1970’s. It was a movement to return our SBC, her seminaries, and thus her churches back to the Bible as the inerrant, infallible, and fully sufficient Word of God. Our church then was considered a “moderate” church. This term was an appropriately acceptable alternative to “liberal.” It simply meant that we worshiped God and loved Jesus but did not see the affirmation of the Bible as inerrant as a matter of any major importance. The conservative resurgence won the day and led to many churches like ours leaving the SBC. We stayed. God did a massive work in this church in the early 1990’s that resulted in a major theological shift from “moderate” to conservative evangelical. It was not the beginning of something new for this church. It was in fact a return to our heritage for which we give praise to God. Our hope is to live, worship, work, and witness in such a way that the roots of our commitment to the absolute Truth of the Bible grow deeper and deeper spread further and further so that until Jesus comes this church remains tethered to the Bible, being and doing all that are and do under the Lordship of Jesus and to the glory of God.