Against the backdrop of the work God was already doing through the True Vine ministry, the church that would become Believers Bible Church was birthed. Swain writes, “[i]n late 1973, a meeting was held to discuss a Bible Church-planting ministry. Some of the staff of Pantego Bible Church met with a few people in Grand Prairie to discuss starting a Bible study with the idea of that developing into becoming a church.” And that’s when Craig Prather came onto the scene—a recent graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary who would become this church’s first pastor.
After completing his seminary training with the class of 1973, Craig—along with his wife Barbara—had a plan to go onto the mission field with CAM (Central America Missions). They’d go first to Mexico for language school, and eventually to Spain, with the intention of doing evangelism and church planting. But first, God had a divine interruption planned for the Prathers.
“We were all excited about going to join a team there [in Spain],” Craig recalls. “But they were wise enough to tell us, ‘You know, Craig and Barbara, you ought to try to do something here in the States, a church plant to give you experience, because it’s gonna be a lot harder in Spain.”
“So within a few months, we found out that Pantego Bible Church in Arlington was wanting to do a satellite church, a daughter church,” Craig continues. “The reason [they chose] Grand Prairie is that the Young Life director in Grand Prairie was attending Pantego Bible. And he was telling about the people he was meeting.”
Barbara reports her memories of the process too. “But God opened the door….God had been working in Grand Prairie through the True Vine, and so the Young Life director … we knew him, and he told us about these people which were the Swains….[Earl and Louise Swain] were the very first people we ever met with.”
“The Vine ministry was bringing a revival to the city, touching several churches—not just one,” Craig explains. “People were coming to Christ from Methodists, Baptists.”
According to Swain’s account:
[T]o get experience in church planting, [Craig] was appointed to lead the effort in Grand Prairie to start the Bible study and lead on into planting a Bible church. Craig started the Bible study in 1974, with a small group of a few people, but there were two other home Bible study groups in Grand Prairie. One group was made up of people from the Methodist Church, and the other Bible study was made up of people from the Baptist church, led by Cecil Bartel. Several of the people in those two Bible study groups had become Christians through the CISTY “True Vine” ministry. Craig contacted the leaders of the other two Bible study groups to discuss the possibility of the three Bible study groups to start meeting together on Sunday evenings in April, 1974.
Barbara recalls that the Bible study’s initial membership included four couples each who had come from the Baptist and Methodist churches.
To hear some tell it, the couples were drawn to this new Bible study at least in part because they weren’t satisfied with the level of spiritual feeding (or lack thereof) they were getting from their previous churches. “It wasn’t that I was such a great teacher,” Craig admits. “But they liked the Bible—[to] study the expository sermons, they liked the interaction, and … they weren’t getting that.”
“There was such a hunger for the Word, and they really embraced Barbara and me,” Craig continues. “We were green, too—you know, brand new rookies. But really, the Lord was in it.”
As new members kept coming and the Bible study grew, the members found a consistent meeting place in the Grand Prairie YMCA on NE 5th Street. And it wasn’t long before the Bible study transitioned into an official church. Swain writes:
After [we met] together for three Sunday nights, a major decision was made to start meeting together on Sunday mornings as a new church. The church began with about 50 people and took the name Believers Bible Church. The men numbered about 20, and they began meeting for weekly prayer and decision-making. A smaller group of men began meeting to write the church constitution. All of the requirements were completed that were needed by the state and IRS to officially be recognized as a church.
Similarly, Barbara recalls:
First Sunday night potluck dinner to get the families together, we had thirty-two people met. Eleven families met for food, and it was those from First Baptist and First Methodist. And then Ken Kilinski was pastor of Pantego [Bible Church] for twenty-seven years, and he and Elliott [Johnson, also from Pantego Bible Church] conducted the service. It was an actual service. Then…with fifteen families present at the first service, the men decided we should meet regularly on Sunday nights for a start. We rented the YMCA….[o]n March thirty-first, sixteen families attended, and on April seventh, we had the same.
Pantego Bible Church affirmed this new gathering as their satellite church. “Pantego would be behind it and give oversight,” Craig explains. “But Elliot Johnson and Ken weren’t really involved in the everyday. It was Barbara and me.” The church had been born—and it was just getting started.