About us

Emmanuel Baptist Church was founded in 1978 by Pastor Walt Zimmerman in Manchester NH. Pastor Z, as he is still referred to today many years now after his passing, was a member of “The Greatest Generation”. He was a WWII hero and a missionary to the Nursing Homes of New England, providing hope and comfort to many in their twilight years. He finally settled down and planted Emmanuel, where he would serve as her lead pastor until 1994. The vision that Pastor Z had for Emmanuel still continues today.

TO BE "AS HE IS IN THIS WORLD"

Bless God, Bless Others, Be the Blessing is our motto and a summary of our strategy built on three simple goals.

Bless God. We want to bring glory to God and make Him smile. The Bible teaches us that we need to love Him first most and best, that we need to live our lives to His glory. At Emmanuel this is the first objective. Will this bless God? From our worship to our generosity to our service we seek to bless God.

Bless Others. Jesus lived to bless others, and particularly the church. Paul teaches in Galatians that we are to look for opportunities to bless especially those who are part of the household of faith. This includes our ministries within the body, such as small groups, fellowships and training events.

Be the Blessing. This is where we take all that we are learning and live it out in the world. From missions, to helping out in our community with projects or having a positive gospel presence at Christmas events, Old Home Days, we seek to be the hands, feet, heart and mind of Christ. This is where we join in the mission of Jesus to take the gospel to all people.

JESUS, GRACE, TRUTH AND THE REST OF OUR VALUES

At Emmanuel we value the grace and truth that is found in Christ and through His Word, the Bible. We try to value what He values. We understand that we are all a work in progress. We have a saying that we have adopted, welcome to the church of broken people, from the pulpit to the pew... being made whole in Jesus. Practically speaking this looks like the following.

We value JESUS. He is EVERYTHING. We believe that He is God in the flesh. That He is our savior, master, our guru, our teacher and we attempt to bring His teaching to life by living it out. We believe that we can KNOW Him in a personal way, just as He was known over 2000 years ago because He is alive and hears our prayers and speaks to us through His Spirit and His Word.

We value GRACE. Everyone has a story, and that story hasn't been completed yet. We understand that everyone is at a different place on their journey of faith and we seek to be merciful and graceful with one another and with those with whom we disagree. Our goal is to reach our community and the world with the glorious grace of the gospel and to live it out with each other.

We value TRUTH. The Bible is the only authority in faith and the practice of that faith. The Bible is an uncomfortable book, it forces us to see ourselves and all of our flaws, it offers us salvation from our sin and the penalty of it through Jesus. It shows us how to live a life that pleases the Lord.

We value RELATIONSHIPS. This means that conflict and confrontation aren't dirty words. We understand that true growth sometimes comes through discomfort. We seek to build relationships with each other, with the Lord and we try to help marriages and families through sermon series, teaching and other events.

We value PEOPLE. Yup. babies to elderly and everything in-between. People are God's creation and people are awesome and JESUS loves them and so do we. Even when WE are loud and messy and BROKEN.

We value our COMMUNITY. We want to be a blessing materially as well as spiritually by providing a safe place for people to come worship, a building that various groups use during the year, an amazing food pantry, toys for tots event among others, and by getting out into our towns and cities to help where we can.

Our leadership team recognizes the authority of God, and realizes that we are shepherds who serve under the Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ. We desire to devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word. Our passion and goal is to equip the believers for the work of the ministry until we all attain maturity in the fullness of Christ. At Emmanuel we believe strongly in the “plurality of elders” as taught in the New Testament, with a “ruling elder” who is first among equals. This provides accountability for the ruling elder who is our lead pastor, as well as encouragement and mutual discipleship among our leaders. The following people are these elders. Coming alongside these men is a team of over 20 other men and women that by the help of the Holy Spirit lead this church.