A small Bible study that grew into a Cleburne landmark
Cleburne Bible Church began in the fall of 1980 as a small Bible study held in a modest storefront near the downtown square of Cleburne, Texas. Within a year the group had grown enough to move to a rented facility on Chambers Street, the present site of a parking lot behind the Dairy Queen on Henderson Avenue, and in December of 1981 the congregation called its first full time pastor, David denHartog.
Two years later the body purchased an existing church facility at the corner of Pendell and Henderson. That building served as the home of Cleburne Bible Church for twenty-five years. During the 1990s and into the early 2000s the church added shepherding elders, brought on a youth pastor, purchased additional property, and built a family life center across the street. By the middle of that decade, with more staff and ministries in place, the congregation began to feel the pressure of its growth. In the fall of 2004 the present property on Nolan River Road was purchased. Construction began in 2007 and the church moved into its current facility in October of 2008.
Senior Pastor David denHartog has now shepherded Cleburne Bible Church for more than four decades. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Iowa, a Master of Theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Ministry from Phoenix Seminary. He and his wife Beth have five children and many grandchildren. Under his leadership the church's motto has become simply: where grace and truth make a difference.
The mission and values that shape everything
Cleburne Bible Church states its mission plainly: to reach people wherever they are in their spiritual journey and nurture them into a maturing relationship with Christ. From that mission the church draws a vision of people equipped to love God and love others. Loving God means pursuing Christ passionately, following the Bible faithfully, and proclaiming Christ boldly. Loving others means building strong families intentionally, loving each other sacrificially, and serving the community diligently.
Eight values flow from that vision. The church will pray, teach the Scriptures, be grace based, seek to worship God authentically, develop Biblical community, equip people to serve, and proclaim the gospel locally and globally. Teaching the Bible, in particular, is a hallmark. The name Bible Church is taken seriously: instruction in understanding and applying Scripture is the focus both in exposition from the pulpit and in classes throughout the week.
What Sundays look like at CBC
Two Sunday morning worship services are held at 9:00 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. Both services include the same sermon and the same music, so a guest can attend either one. The services are casual and contemporary, blending fresh praise and worship songs with hymns, and the Bible message is central. The sermon is preached by David denHartog, Dean Elliott, or Kevin Bentley in rotation.
Adult Sunday School is offered at 9:00 and 10:45 on a seasonal schedule. A Children's Ministry is open during both services for children from eight weeks old through fourth grade, with hands-free check-in through the Church Center app. The HUB Student Ministry gathers 7th through 12th graders for a Sunday school class at 9:00 in the Student Ministry Area, then the students sit together in the front middle section of the worship center at 10:45. Crossroads 56, the preteen ministry for fifth and sixth graders, meets at 10:45 in the Student Ministry Area for games, teaching, and group time.
First time guests are encouraged to arrive fifteen to thirty minutes early, especially if they need a few extra minutes to locate the nursery or children's classroom. Guests are welcomed, given coffee, and shown where to go. There is no pressure to give: the offering plates are not passed regularly at Cleburne Bible Church. Offering boxes sit just inside the doors of the MPR (the large worship room) and the two main entrances, and giving is also available online and by text.
Wednesday nights around the building
Wednesday is one of the busiest evenings of the week at Cleburne Bible Church. A prayer meeting runs from 5:00 to 6:00 p.m. The HUB Student Ministry meets from 6:00 to 8:15 p.m. for seventh through twelfth graders, with worship and large group teaching from 6:00 to 7:00, followed by dinner and small group time. On the last Wednesday of each month, the program shifts to Small Group Only Night, with groups meeting in homes, restaurants, or parks.
AWANA runs from 6:30 to 8:15 p.m. during the school year for potty trained three year olds through sixth grade. Women's and men's Bible studies also meet from 6:30 to 8:15 p.m. during the fall and spring semesters. Earlier in the morning, a men's inductive Bible study gathers at 6:15 a.m. in rooms 109 and 110, entered through the church office.
Children from eight weeks through sixth grade
Vicki Neutzler, known around the church simply as Miss Vicki, leads the Children's Ministry. She joined the staff in 2004 after a career in teaching and has been married to Larry Neutzler for forty-five years. Barbra Valerio serves as the Nursery and Preschool Coordinator and has been on the Children's Ministry team since 1994. The goal of the team is to provide a safe, organized, and loving environment where children can learn biblical truth and experience the love of Jesus Christ.
Programming for children includes Sunday morning classes for ages eight weeks through fourth grade, AWANA on Wednesday evenings, the Marti Wrangler Bible Club for kindergarten through fourth grade at Marti Elementary on Tuesdays from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. (October through April), the Pine Cove City day camp in late July, and Pine Cove's Camp Fuego for fifth and sixth graders. Parent-Child Dedication is offered as a public commitment by parents to raise their child in cooperation with the Holy Spirit. A childcare program is also provided on Sunday evenings, Wednesday evenings, and Thursday mornings during women's Bible study, with registration through the Church Center app.
The HUB, Crossroads 56, and RISE
The student ministry at Cleburne Bible Church is built around three environments designed to invite teenagers on a journey into a deeper relationship with Jesus, their peers, and their leaders. Events throughout the year often serve as the front door for a first time visitor. Weekly programs on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights are designed for growth. Small groups are the backbone: every student is connected to a consistent adult leader and a small community of peers.
Crossroads 56 is designed as a bridge between elementary and youth. The five and six ministry meets at 10:45 a.m. on Sundays for games, teaching, and group time, with a mission of helping preteens own their faith.
RISE is the young adults ministry for unmarried adults ages eighteen to thirty. The group meets on the first and third Friday of each month from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in SMA-A, with a worship night on the fifth Friday. Its mission is summarized as Reaching Inward. Serving Everyone.
Men, women, marriage, and recovery
The men's ministry centers on a Wednesday morning inductive Bible study at 6:15 a.m. and additional Bible studies and service projects throughout the year. The women's ministry offers Bible studies on Wednesday evenings and Thursday mornings during the fall and spring semesters, along with R.E.A.L. Women events that focus on Relationships, Encouragement, Accountability, and Laughter. CBC Mom Link gathers mothers for community, and Anchor of Hope reaches out to widows with consistent encouragement. Fit4:8, a free women's Pound and Cardio Dance exercise class led by Pound-certified Wendy Elliott, is open to the wider community.
The marriage ministry is built around two programs. Re|engage is a marriage enrichment experience that meets once a week for about two hours, beginning with a large group time and moving into small groups of four to five couples who walk through a sixteen-lesson curriculum. It typically runs each fall. Merge is a premarital curriculum drawn from Watermark Community Church in Dallas, offered as needed to engaged and seriously dating couples.
Re:generation is a Christ-centered, twelve-step discipleship program that meets weekly at Cleburne Bible Church. Dean Elliott, the Associate Pastor, leads the ministry in addition to his administrative and financial duties. Hope Restored Counseling, a Christian counseling practice led by Tom Worthley, is also connected to the church. Short term counseling by staff pastors is available to members and attenders by contacting the church office.
From Cleburne to the world
Fifteen percent of all undesignated offerings to Cleburne Bible Church go into the Missions Fund, supporting a wide network of missionaries and organizations. The church partners with missionaries in Canada, the United States, Central America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, including Child Evangelism Fellowship, Crossworld, World Venture, Ethnos360, Greater European Missions, Wycliffe, and Chosen People Ministries. The church has a sister church relationship with Shemen Sasson in Jerusalem.
Locally, the Missions Fund supports the Cleburne Pregnancy Center, Operation Blessing of Johnson County, the Wrangler Bible Club at Marti Elementary, Crazy8 Ministries, AWANA, Gideons International, and a number of other outreach efforts. The church does not pass an offering plate but provides offering boxes and online giving, treating giving as a deliberate act of worship rather than a response to social pressure.
An elder-led congregation
Cleburne Bible Church is governed by a volunteer Elder Board that makes decisions collectively according to the church's constitution. Elders are selected on the basis of their biblical qualifications and serve as under-shepherds of the flock. The current board includes David denHartog, Dean Elliott, Brad Marshall, Eric Bishop, Stephen Burdett, Adam Stewart, and Bobby de la Garza. Elder emeriti include Val and Charlotte Loose, Pat and Marsa Lee Linkenhoger, Richard and Betty Lee, Sam and Lana Jo Hommel, Joe and Iris Browder, Larry and Vicki Neutzler, Marc and Rebecca West, Les and Carol Long, and Rodney and Vicki Bryant.
Because of the church's size, a Pastoral Care team of trained volunteers supplements the pastoral staff. The team handles hospital visitation, care for those who are homebound or in nursing facilities, and extended grief care. The team is led by Ken Byrd, with ongoing training provided by Marc West, who has served professionally as a hospital chaplain.
What we believe
Cleburne Bible Church teaches that there is one God eternally existing in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Bible is God's authoritative, written revelation, verbally inspired and without mistakes as originally written. The church confesses the deity of Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, his sinless life, his miracles, his substitutionary death on the cross, his bodily resurrection, his ascension, his present intercession, and his personal, imminent return.
The Holy Spirit performs the miracle of the new birth and indwells believers, enabling them to live a godly life. Human beings were created in the image of God but, because of sin, are alienated from him. Salvation is by grace through faith in Christ alone, secured by his death and resurrection, and the eternal security of the believer rests in the Word of God rather than in human works. The church also teaches the bodily resurrection of everyone who has lived, the judgment seat of Christ for believers, and everlasting life or everlasting punishment based on a person's response to the Son.
Baptism is practiced by immersion as a public identification with Christ and a picture of death to an old way of life and resurrection to a new one. Communion, also called the Lord's Supper or the Lord's Table, is celebrated most weeks during the Sunday morning worship service as a time of remembrance, anticipation, fellowship, and worship.
Listening, reading, and watching at home
Worship services are livestreamed on Sunday mornings at 9:00 and 10:45 a.m., and the recording is made available as soon as possible after the second service concludes. The sermon archive, organized by book of the Bible and by series, goes back through dozens of categories and many years of preaching. Sermon audio is also available through a podcast feed, and sermon notes are posted alongside each message.
For those joining online, a Connection Card is available for visitors who want to share their information, and prayer requests can be submitted online at any time. Giving is available online through the church's giving platform, by text message, by mail, or by check or cash dropped by the finance office. Text giving is handled by texting an amount to 817-382-3013, with a one-time registration on first use.
A Forward by Faith season
Cleburne Bible Church is in the middle of a building campaign called Forward by Faith, with a stated goal of $4,250,000. Donations to the campaign are tracked transparently, and the church's published budget and financial reports are reviewed monthly by the staff and Elder Board. A copy of the church's constitution and a full doctrinal statement are available in PDF form for anyone who wants to read them in detail.
From two Sunday morning services to a week full of small groups, recovery groups, women's fitness, after-school Bible club, youth programs, missions support on four continents, and a building campaign that points to the future, Cleburne Bible Church is built on a single idea: that grace and truth really do make a difference, and that the call to follow Jesus is best lived out together.