The journey started as a church plant with two other friends. We all graduated from different IFB Bible colleges but still managed to get along :). Not going to lie, we held to IFB traditions when things first started. It is ironic that the traditional IFB Baptist acrostic is what God seemed to use to bring us out of the Movement.
Regarding this acrostic, all IFP people know that the first point is “The Bible is the only rule of faith and practice”, and we all took this seriously. The idea of Sola Scriptura was something we truly began to champion, which eventually meant exalting the Word of God over our man made traditions. This meant some deep introspection about many of the things we held on to.
This examination was happening individually, and amazingly, to us as a group. Even though we weren’t always talking about it, God was working in all of us at the same time. These conversations would eventually come up among us-admittedly it sometimes came up with hesitance-and we found out that was we thought was only our private journey was something we were going through together.
I have personally found that putting the emphasis on Scripture has allowed us to be free from the bondage of legalism and enabled us to show grace to others. I find it interesting that people think that leaving the movement always means ‘going liberal’, but on the contrary, it was really actually departing from a very surface level faith. The commitment to the Word of God(read from many fine translations) above tradition does not make one more liberal: it makes them more orthodox.
Ironically, the movement that often boasts of ‘Bible preaching’ but fails to actually preach from the Bible is very quick to anathematize those who actually do. It is because of this, that I truly appreciate what you guys are doing. Relationships are lost when you when someone decides to go agains IFB tradition and can make you feel like you are in a really weird and isolated spot. Hopefully, this website and podcast will allow those who have left find each other and build friendships that are based on the bond we have in Christ instead of the traditions created by men.