OUR STORY
From an earthly perspective, Strong Tower Church came into existence by accident. In 2016, theological convictions led a very small group of young believers out of their former church and into a lounge room, where, despite having nowhere to go on a Sunday morning, they met every week to study the Scriptures. At the time, our only real desire was to understand the faith that we professed, and so we began a journey through an intellectually-rigorous course in systematic theology.
Over time, the size of the group grew, and once Ernie had completed his theological studies (BTh. Hon.), the functions of the group expanded to be more than what one would expect from a simple weekly Bible study. On November 19, 2017, we administered our very first baptism, and we soon after began partaking of the Lord’s Supper together. As needs arose, we would create structures to meet them, including structures for membership, leadership, and church discipline, and upon realising that we bore the three marks of a visible church (as per the Belgic Confession of Faith), we no longer called ourselves a Bible study, and we began to be intentional in functioning as a local house church.
From 2018 to 2022, we continued (and still continue) to learn what it means to be a church, while the Lord still continues to add to our number. The result has been a close-knit, diverse community of pilgrims on the way, devoted to biblical teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer (Acts 2:42). We exist today as a Reformed Baptist congregation in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, seeking to ascribe glory to the triune God through proclaiming and studying the unadulterated truth of Scripture, holding that the power of God is truly manifest not in a gospel adorned with political correctness, nor in a gospel stripped of its offense to contemporary sensibilities, but in the gospel rightly and faithfully proclaimed.
If you are seeking fellowship, suffering hardship, struggling with the Bible, desiring to be part of a community of Christian critical thinkers, or simply wishing to know more about the saving grace of Jesus Christ, we warmly welcome all. Above everything else, however, we desire nothing more than that all we do, from the least of us to the greatest, would be to the praise of the glory of God alone, and that the name of Jesus would be exalted among us.
