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Church Information Brief
The Potter's House Christian Fellowship (or Potter's House Christian Church, or The Potter's House) is an Australian Pentecostal church. The group was founded in 1978 in Perth, but has since spread to other parts of Australia and to some other countries. They trace their founding back to another Pentecostal group, the Christian Fellowship Ministries, in Prescott, Arizona led by Pastor Wayman Mitchell.
Church Current Statistics
There is at this time just over 100,000 members, who also come under the Potters House name through these ministries - The Door(CFC), Victory Chappell, 'CFM' Christian Fellowship Ministries. There are approx. 1400 Churches belonging to the Fellowship world wide. The mother church is in Prescott Arizona US and is headed by Pastor Wayman Mitchell
Church Activity
The Potters House Christian Fellowship is a Radical Collection of Born Again Believers. The Church is known for its Outreach which mainly comprises of Concerts, Witnessing, Movies and Drama's. The Church is very active on the streets and likes to confront people about their salvation. Some times the love of this church for the souls of men and women is misinterpreted as intrusionary.
Church History
Wayman Mitchell originally began his network of churches under the affiliation of the Church of the Foursquare Gospel and continued this affiliation until having a disagreement with Church of the Foursquare Gospel leaders concerning ordination requirements for new ministers. Wayman Mitchell believed that a new pastor should be trained through "discipleship" rather than any sort of higher education such as bible college and by the mid '80's Wayman Mitchell had a following of well over 100 "baby" churches, pastored by men who had been "discipled" under Wayman Mitchell and then sent out with no further education or training.
In 1985 Wayman Mitchell officially gave up his Church of the Foursquare Gospel affilation and took up a practice under CFM, the church he had established in Prescott. When Wayman Mitchell left Church of the Foursquare Gospel, most of his baby churches went with him and from this division CFM was born.
Church Doctrine
The Potter's House Christian Fellowship is a Fundamental (close to the original) Pentecostal, Bible believing, Disciple making, and relationship building type of church. The church members are enthusiastic, full of energy in your face Christians who like to continually outreach and worship GOD wholly. There are biblical standards for ministry and the Fellowship believes in teaching by discipleship.
The Doctrine is the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Truth over Relationship, Submission unto Headship, Pro Life, Biblical Moral Standards, Winning the Lost to Christ by continual outreach. This Church has a modest attitude and refuses get caught up in the latest things like: Laughing Spirit and Pensacola type Fads.
The Potters House Christian Fellowship is NOT into Getting Religious Folk or Taking other congregations members, but into outreaching those who do not have a church or who have never heard of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This attitude has caused the church to flourish.
Church Name Origins
The Potters House is a church planting New Testament Church who seems to be making great progress towards biblical goal in:
Mark 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
The Name seems to come from the bible in:
Jeremiah 18:2 Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.
And this phrase below is coined quite frequently.
You oh GOD are the Potter, and I am the Clay, Mould me and Make me oh Lord.
Church Conferences
There is a Conference in Prescott Arizona twice per year, and a Conference in Perth Australia once per year.
Church Stands
Bible Schools, Church Planting and Discipleship
There is always an interest in the Fellowship's rejection of Bible schools as a vehicle for church planting. The following are a few reasons for this:
1) Bible schools aren't biblical. They are a medieval institution left over from Catholisism, and are used in imitation of the world.
2) Bible schools can't do the job of world evangelism. The world population is growing at a rate of seventy million people a year. That means that every day 194,444 people are added to the population, over and above those who die, The cost of training workers by traditional methods is prohibitive. Even if finances were available, the Bible school method is slow and inefficient that the church is not even able to keep pace with the risingpopulation, let alone reach the world.
3) The Bible school isolates the man of God from practical experience, which is meant to come through the church, For most students, thee school begins to take the place of church commitment and worship. This leads to bad habits of discipline and isolates them from the very people they are preparing to minister to.
4) All attempts to mass produce disciplines will ultimately fail. Men of God must be hand crafted.
5) The requirements of Bible schools eliminate many who God would use. The requirements of money, previous education, and age would have stopped Jesus and the twelve disciples.
6) The Bible school system puts the church on a standard of "mind" not "heart" rewarding wrong motives, and creating an elitist mentality of really having paid too high a price to reach the poor.
7) Bible Schools tend to put those who can't pastor into the role of pastor trainers.
8) The system builds into the church a clergy-laity mentality that denies the priesthood of the believer, and others just need to be saved.
9) (Editor says: Not in the Book see for yourself.)
10) Bible schools rob the church of dignity it was meant to have in the preparing of workers and reaching a lost world.
11) They violate the indigenous principle.
12) Bible schools while not evil in themselves are not God's best method.
Referenced from 'We can take the Land' by Ron Simpkins(ISBN 0918389003) Page 275 -276. This book is a standard potters house discipleship/New Pastors book with the Potters House Christian Fellowship, which gives the account and is freely available and has no copyright.
Church Pro Active
The majority of experience is that of thankfulness and that the congregation are glad to really know the truth and nearly all tell of a Testimony of how Jesus Christ has touched them and changed them into better people. It seems about 25% of the congregation are ex Drug Users or Alcoholics and all seem to of been set free indeed, some have been serving GOD for over 20 Years.
The Potters House Christian Fellowship embraces all Nationalities and Class, They have an extra focus in their outreach towards the lower class of society, and yet the Congregations are of mostly Middle Class, which goes to prove the change in peoples lives that this church's message has. There is strong sense of Team spirit and Comradeship, and Faces that mostly appear to be joyous and smiling.
When last researched almost all who dislike or protest The Potters House Christian Fellowship, have trouble with submission, and seem quite bitter, and don’t to have True Biblical principles in their lives, and although only a very small minority are quite vocal on the internet.
Church Ojectionists
The Potter's House Christian Fellowship, otherwise commonly known as The Door (CFM) has continued to grow and expand their presence into many parts of the world. As more has become known of CFM, it has increasingly been labeled as a "cult group" by many ex-members, including pastors long involved with the movement. One can find many internet resources concerning the practices and policies of CFM, most noteably the "slam the door" yahoo message group (linked below), created to help recovering survivors of CFM.
External Links
External Church links
External Doctrine Links
External Pro-active Links