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About our
Church
Our
Purpose
Church History
Doctrinal
Statement
Our
Pastor
Youth
Pastor
Our
Purpose
The purpose of Heart's Journey
is to present isagogical, categorical and exegetical Bible
teaching, standing unequivocally for the fundamentals of the
faith as contained in the Holy Scriptures; and through the
teaching of the Word of God in this Church to send out
missionaries, and to ordain Evangelists to present the Gospel of
the Lord Jesus Christ both at home and abroad, and to ordain
Pastor-Teachers to teach the Word of God both at home and
abroad. The thrust of the Heart's Journey is to make sound
doctrine available to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, to the
end that each believer might become spiritually self-sustaining;
i.e., "until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of
the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a
result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there
by waves, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the
trickery of men, by craftiness, in deceitful scheming."
(Ephesians 4:13-14) The execution of the purpose of this Church
is the frequent teaching of the Word of God to its saints.
Church
History
Heart's Journey is a
multi-racial, independent, non-charismatic, non-denominational
church located on the corners of Tall Timber Boulevard and
Stagecoach Road in Little Rock, Arkansas. It was founded and
organized in September 1975 by its only Pastor, the Rev. Dr.
James A. Brettell and three other men, all four of whom came
from a Southern Baptist background. Dr. Brettell was ordained at
First Baptist Church, England, Arkansas, in 1970, and was later
ordained by Heart's Journey in 1975. The Heart's Journey met for
the first year at the Golden Host Cafeteria and then moved to a
small church building on the corner of 18th Street & Wilson Road
in Little Rock. This location served the church until 1995 at
which time the church moved into its present building on Tall
Timber Boulevard. As of February 1996, the Heart's Journey has
185 members. 100 members come from Little Rock and 85 members
come from 22 cities outside of Little Rock. Many of those from
outside of Little Rock travel from 40 to 70 miles, one way, each
Sunday to worship with the church family. The Holy Spirit has
drawn this church family together around the Bible teaching
ministry of its Pastor who teaches isagogically, categorically,
and exegetically. Dr. Brettell has earned a Bachelor of Science
in Education from Akron University, Akron, Ohio. He has also
earned a Master of Divinity Degree and Doctor of Ministry Degree
from Luther Rice Seminary, Jacksonville, Florida. Under his
leadership, God has developed many ministries from this
moderately sized church. For information about the church's
ministries, you are invited to browse the CHURCH MINISTRY page.
For the past three or four years, the church has averaged
approximately twenty-five men with communication gifts, either
Pastor-Teacher, Evangelist or Teacher. These men are involved in
ministry on a weekly basis and have been trained by the Pastor
on the local church level.
Doctrinal Statement
1. The Holy Scriptures
We believe the Holy Scriptures
to be the inspired Word of God, authoritative, inerrant, and
God-breathed. (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:20-21; Matthew 5:18;
John 16:12-13)
2. The Godhead
We believe in one Triune God,
existing in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, eternal
in being, identical in nature, equal in power and glory and
having the same attributes and perfections. (Deuteronomy 6:4; 2
Corinthians 13:14)
3. The Total Depravity of Man
We believe that man was created
in the image and likeness of God, but that in Adam's sin the
human race fell, inherited a sinful nature, became alienated
from God, and is totally unable to retrieve his original
condition. (Genesis 1:26-27; Romans 3:22-23; 5:12; Ephesians
2:12)
4. The Person and Work of Christ
We believe that the Lord Jesus
Christ, the eternal Son of God, became man, without ceasing to
be God, having been conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the
virgin Mary, in order that He might reveal God and redeem sinful
man; that He accomplished our redemption through His death on
the cross as a substitutionary sacrifice; that our redemption is
made sure to us by His literal physical resurrection from the
dead (John 1:1-2, 14; Luke 1:35; Romans 3:24-25; 4:25; 1 Peter
1:3-5); that the Lord Jesus Christ is now in heaven, exalted at
the right hand of God the Father, where as the High Priest for
His people, He fulfills the ministry of Representative,
Intercessor and Advocate. (Hebrews 9:24; 7:25; Romans 8:34; 1
John 2:1-2).
5. The Personality and Work of
the Holy Spirit
We believe that the Holy Spirit
is a person who convicts the world of sin, indwells all
believers in the present age, baptizes them into the Body of
Christ, seals them unto the day of redemption, and that it is
the duty of every believer to be yielded to and filled by the
Holy Spirit. (Romans 8:9; 1 Corinthians 12:12-14; Ephesians
1:13-14; 5:18)
6. Salvation
We believe that salvation in
every dispensation is the gift of God brought to man by grace
and received by personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ whose
precious blood was shed for the forgiveness of our sins
(Ephesians 2:8-10; John 1:12; Ephesians 1:7).
7. The Eternal Security of
Believers
We believe that all believers
are kept secure forever. (Romans 8:1, 38-39; John 10:27-30; 1
Corinthians 1:4-8)
8. The Church
We believe that the Church,
which is now the Body and will be the Bride of Christ, is a
spiritual organism made up of all born-again believers of this
Age irrespective of their affiliation with Christian
organizations. (Ephesians 1:22-23; 5:25-27; 1 Corinthians
12:12-14)
9. The Personality of Satan
We believe in the personality of
Satan, who is the open and declared enemy of God and man. (Job
1:6-7; Matthew 4:2-11; Isaiah 14:12-17)
10. The Blessed Hope
We believe that the next great
event in the fulfillment of prophecy will be the coming of the
Lord Jesus in the air to receive to Himself the dead in Christ
and believers who are alive at His coming, otherwise known as
the Rapture and Translation of the Church. (1 Corinthians
15:51-57; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Titus 2:11-14)
11. The Tribulation
We believe that the Rapture of
the Church will be followed by the fulfillment of Daniel's
seventieth week, the latter half of which is the time of Jacob's
trouble, the Great Tribulation. (Daniel 9:27; Jeremiah 30:7;
Matthew 24:15-21; Revelation 6:1-19; 21)
12. The Second Coming of Christ
We believe that the Great
Tribulation will be climaxed by the Premillennial return of the
Lord Jesus Christ to earth to set up His kingdom. (Zechariah
14:4-11; Matthew 24:15-25, 46; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10;
Revelation 20:6)
13. The Eternal State
We believe that the human soul
and human spirit of those who have believed in the Lord Jesus
Christ for salvation do at death immediately pass into His
presence, and there remain in conscious bliss until the
resurrection of the body at His coming, when soul, human spirit
and body reunited will be associated with Him forever in the
glory; but the souls of unbelievers remain after death in
conscious misery until the final judgment of the great white
throne at the close of the millennium, when the soul and body
reunited will be cast into the lake of fire, not to be
annihilated, but to be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power.
(Luke 16:19-26; 23:43; 2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23; 2
Thessalonians 1:7-9; Jude 6-7; Revelation 20:11-15)
14. The Responsibility of
Believers
We believe that all believers
should seek to walk in such a manner as to not bring reproach
upon their Lord and Savior, that it is the obligation of every
believer to witness by life and by word to the truths of the
Holy Scriptures and to seek to proclaim the Gospel to all the
world (Acts 1:8); that it is the responsibility of all believers
to remember the work of the Lord in prayer and to support it
with their means as the Lord has prospered them. (1 Corinthians
16:2)
15. Church Ordinance
We believe that the Lord Jesus
Christ instituted the ordinances of baptism by immersion and the
Lord's Supper to be observed until His return. (Mt. 28:19-20; 1
Corinthians 11:23-26)
16. Sovereignty
We believe that God, existing as
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is sovereign, and exercises supreme
and absolute rule over all creation as a part of and consistent
with the essence and attributes of deity. (1 Chronicles
29:11-12; Daniel 4:35; Psalm 24:1; Ephesians 1:11; 1 Timothy
6:15)
17. Spirituality
Spirituality is the condition of
being saved, clean before the Lord through confession of
personal sins, yieldedness to God the Holy Spirit, and walking
in the light.
We believe that a believer
becomes carnal through an act of mental, verbal or overt sin and
that fellowship with God is restored by confession of sin and
walking in the light. While confessed sin produces forgiveness
and cleansing of sins, fellowship with God requires walking in
the light. (Galatians 5:16; Ephesians 5:18; Romans 6:6, 11, 13;
1 Corinthians 11:30-31; 1 John 1:7, 9)
18. Spiritual Gifts
We believe that God the Holy
Spirit in grace and apart from human merit sovereignty bestows
spiritual gifts to believers in this dispensation. The permanent
spiritual gifts which exist today are Pastor-Teacher,
evangelist, governments, ruling, exhortation, teacher, ministry,
helps, giving and mercy. We further believe that the temporary
spiritual gifts were apostle, prophet, tongues, interpretation
of tongues, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, discerning of
spirits, faith, healings, and miracles. Tongues and
interpretation of tongues ceased in 70 A.D. and the other eight
temporary gifts ceased with the completion of the Canon of
Scripture. (Romans 12:6-8; 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, 28-30; 13:8;
Ephesians 4:11)
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