Mission and History

HBF Statements of Purpose and Vision

At the end of 2015, members of the HBF Board worked under consultation with Pastor Lito Sampan of Jaron Ministries to create a simplified Purpose Statement (in the spirit of that established by the IABFC) and Vision Statement for 2016:

Purpose Statement: The HBF exists to glorify God by making disciples and enlarging God's family.

Vision Statement: By the end of 2016, the HBF will have added five new families to its fold, and established three new cell groups.

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The following is derived from the International Association of Bible Fellowship Centers' Guide to Faith and Practice, Revised and Amended, 2006.

Statement of Purpose

Bible Fellowship Centers are established:

• 1. To give glory to God;

  2. To respond to the commission of Christ to evangelize the lost. In the words of the great Apostle Paul, "To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith …" (Acts 26:18);

  3. To make disciples of believers; and

  4. To serve our "… own generation by the will of God …" (Acts 13:36).

Historical Statement

The roots of the International Association of Bible Fellowship Centers have their beginning in two areas, which are a continent and an ocean apart. The Tulsa, Okla. congregation, pastored by Dr. J. Louis Emmert, the Bartlesville, Okla. congregation and their pastor, Rev. James Fisher, along with Rev. Charles Tryon and his mission group, chose to form the International Association of Bible Fellowship Centers. The mission group of the Philippine Islands, begun in 1973 by Rev. Charles Tryon, had been supported by the Tulsa and Bartlesville congregations for several years.

The work in the overseas area flourished and expanded rapidly to the islands of Okinawa, Guam, and Hawaiʻi. Meanwhile, in the continental United States in August 1979, the Calvary Bible Fellowship Center was organized in Oklahoma City, Okla. under the leadership of Dr. H. C. Emmert.

From its inception, the Association of Bible Fellowship Centers has adhered to the great historic doctrines of Christendom, including Martin Luther's Justification by Faith and John Wesley's Bible doctrine of Christian holiness as a second work of grace. The organization is, by deliberate design, an association and not a denomination.