Community Bible Church (CBC) is part of what is commonly called “the modern Bible Church movement”.

Early in the 20th century, most Christians were part of a mainline denomination. But a great division was taking place at that time between liberals and fundamentalists. Simply put, the liberals did not believe the Bible to be the inerrant word of God. The fundamentalists did. Though “fundamentalist” can mean something very different today, a century ago it was a broad term used to refer to all those who believed the Bible to be the Word of God without error.

Bible churches, Bible institutes and seminaries sprang up as fundamentalists began leaving the mainline denominations. This is basically where the modern Bible Church movement was born. The primary motivation behind this movement was proclamation—a focus on declaring the Biblical message.

In the late 1960’s, Gene Getz—a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary—detected a shortcoming of the Bible Church movement (as well as many other types of churches). Bible churches had been established to proclaim the Biblical message at a time when that was desperately needed. But Getz—in his book, Building Up One Another—explains that the shortcoming for most Bible churches was a lack of emphasis on fellowship. Many were lacking true, Biblical “body life.”

At the same time, Ray Stedman, pastor of Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California, was exploring a similar emphasis in that congregation. He published a book in the early 1970’s entitled Body Life calling churches to return to a Biblical model of the church that emphasizes both truth and loving community.

God used both these men and others to influence many church planters and pastors over the past few decades. Many Bible churches were planted as a result—including Community Bible Church of Lawrence, Kansas. CBC was planted in 1982 by Dallas Seminary graduate, Chuck Thomas, who pastored from 1982 to 2005. Our current pastor, Shaun LePage, is also a graduate of Dallas Seminary.

CBC remains committed to our roots: proclaiming the Biblical message as well as establishing a community characterized by Christ-like love. This commitment is rooted in the strong convictions that the local church is highly significant in God’s eyes and has been given some very important work to do.

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