I attended Coral Baptist Church on February 23, 2003 in Coral Springs, FL. Coral Baptist is a Southern Baptist Church. Coral Baptist Church teaches and practices "discipleship". CBC believes that the most important thing that Jesus Christ does is "radically and wonderfully change lives" (http://www.coralbaptistchurch.org/AboutCBC.htm). .
The modern Baptist denomination began in England and Holland in the seventeenth century. There were two major groups that were classified as General Baptist and Particular Baptist. There are four major views from which the Baptist movement is thought to have originated from. One view is the outgrowth of English Separatism. Another is the influence of Anabaptists. The third and fourth views are the continuation of biblical teachings and the succession of Baptist churches. .
There are over 23,000,000 Baptists in the US today which belong to different types of Baptist churches such as: Southern Baptist, American Baptist, Primitive Baptist, Separate Baptist, Reform Baptist, and Regular Baptist. About 520,000 Baptists live in the Ft. Lauderdale/Miami area according to http://www.adherents.com. This is about 16.2% of the areas population. .
I felt extremely comfortable walking into Coral Baptist Church. I was greeted at the door and handed a pamphlet, which I failed to look at until the end of the service. I did remember some parts, which I later wrote filled in the blanks of the "message notes" that I have attached. .
The church was large and filled with a good mixture of people of all colors and ages. I ended up sitting in the balcony and mostly kept my eyes on the TV monitors, which had the Pastor's sermon notes on, somewhat like a power point presentation. The church's interior was very plain, with no major icons on the pulpit. There were banners hanging around the room that said things such as "God is great", and messages of peace. .
The sermon was the majority of the service.
