Grace Baptist Church Eldoret

In 2007, with the help of Grace Baptist Church, Kisumu, our pastor Naphtally Ogallo began holding Bible studies in his home. As people began to say that they had trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ and been saved, Sunday worship meetings began in 2008 once it became safe to do so (after the post-election violence).

In November 2008, those who had believed were baptised and agreed to walk together as Christian brothers and sisters – obeying the Bible’s teaching, caring for one another and trying to bring the good news about Jesus to others. In the same month, our second pastor David Anderson joined the church. Naphtally and David were formally chosen and set aside as pastors in 2009.

The Lord has continued to be good to us and people have continued to come forward to say that they have been saved and to join the church. In November 2009 we gave thanks at our first anniversary. As of January 2010, we have 31 members who have committed to walk together, and you will find between 60 and 90 people at our Sunday worship services.

What We Believe

The church is evangelical, which means that we preach the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection and that relying on that work (not on any of our own works) is the only way for a person to be saved. It also means that we accept only the Bible as our authority. No elder or pastor, no tradition and no prophet or apostle has authority to bring new teaching to God’s people. The work of the church’s leaders is to show the church what God has taught us in the Scriptures, not to add to it or change it.

The church is also Baptist, which means that we believe that Jesus commands those who have believed that they should be baptised as a testimony to him and then join the church as members. The members then jointly “own” the church and its ministries. It is their responsibility to serve the Lord in the church, and their privilege to receive pastoral care and teaching from the church, especially from its elders.

Our elders being prayed for when they were appointed

Five of our beliefs are these five “alones”:

• That salvation is by God’s grace alone – it is a free gift of God to hell-deserving sinners, not earned by us.
• That the work of salvation is all done by Christ alone – neither us or the church can contribute anything; we are too sinful.
• That salvation is received by faith alone – not because of our good efforts, joining a church, anything we do in the church, but simply by relying on Jesus and what he has done.
• That Christ gives teaching to the church through the Bible alone (not through new prophecies, or through church traditions).
• That all the work of salvation and the desire of the Christian should be for the glory of God alone. A believer should not try to bring glory to himself or his church, and no church leader should try to lift up himself or his ministry – instead, his work is to make people know about the greatness of God in Christ and obey him.

You can download and read a longer summary of our beliefs by following this link. We are in fellowship with a number of other Baptist churches who meet for fellowship and other work together.

In Kenya very few churches are faithfully teaching the Bible. There is a lot of noise, preachers trying to be famous, music and supposed healings and miracles. Real Christianity is not about these things, but about the great person and works of Jesus Christ. If you come to our church, you will hear about him, what he has done for our sins and what he now requires from us.