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Back to the Bible (Missionary Church)
After Don left, Dad started having a lot of conflict with the other elders. He wanted to move the church toward a more “holiness” track, like the Bible Missionary Church, but with less legalism. It was clear neither he nor the church was going to move, so they asked him to step down from the elder board. Mom said Dad was going to have to humble himself and go back and submit himself to Brother Everhart, which we did.
The Bible Missionary Church was a denomination in the conservative holiness movement, which means that they believe very strongly in a “second work of grace,” sometimes called “Christian perfection.” It means that after you “get saved” and give your life to Jesus, you still have a root of sin that sticks in your heart, and it will stay there and lead you astray and even make you lose your salvation eventually if you don’t get “sanctified” and let God take every last bit of “inbred sin” out of you. It was a whole theological vocabulary, one that even most other Christians wouldn’t have quite understood.
Dad and I were both at the altar nearly every time it was open, seeking to be sanctified. Cornerstone was just regular Christian, so they didn’t teach about getting sanctified, and we rarely had altar calls, but at the Bible Missionary Church, they were a regular occurrence, especially during revivals and camp meetings. I had gotten saved at…
