Find Your Refuge in Jesus on Pilgrim Mill Road
Tucked along Pilgrim Mill Road in Cumming, Georgia, Refuge Baptist Church is a Bible-preaching congregation whose motto, drawn from Psalm 91:2, is simple: "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust." The church's own description of its purpose reads in three short lines - Love God, Love People, Serve the World - and its ministry is centered on Jesus Christ and grounded in the unchanging Word of God. Pastored since 2019 by Bob Ensminger, Refuge Baptist has built its identity around clear, expository preaching, the historic hymns of the faith, and a steady calendar of three weekly gatherings meant to feed and strengthen the local body of believers.
Three Services a Week, All Built Around the Bible
Refuge Baptist keeps a simple, three-meeting weekly rhythm that mirrors the pattern of many serious-minded Bible churches. On Sunday mornings, Sunday School runs from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m., with classes for adults and children meeting in a classroom-style setting for instruction in God's Word. The main Sunday Morning worship service follows from 10:45 to 11:45 a.m., and a Sunday Afternoon service gathers from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. The week closes with a Wednesday Evening meeting from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m., described by Pastor Ensminger as "primarily a time of corporate prayer, in which personal, church and national concerns are brought to the Lord in prayer," followed by a short Bible challenge. Services are also broadcast online through the church's YouTube channel for those who cannot attend in person.
Hymns from the Hymnbook and Expository Preaching
The music at Refuge Baptist is unapologetically traditional. The congregation sings hymns and Gospel songs straight out of a hymnbook, accompanied by piano and organ (and, occasionally, a trombone). The aim, in the church's own words, is to worship God in a manner that honors Him and edifies the heart - "heart-warming and instructional" music that is "uplifting and soul-searching." Visitors will not find a praise band or projected lyrics; they will find page numbers, four-part harmony and tunes that have been sung in Bible churches for generations.
The preaching carries the same character. Every sermon is intended to present "the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27), worked through the text of Scripture verse by verse. Recent Sunday morning series have moved steadily through 1 Thessalonians and 2 Corinthians - sermons titled "Perfect Plans for the Future," "Look Up! Jesus Is Coming!," "The Power of the Gospel to Change Lives," and "Are You in the Faith?" Sunday afternoon services have worked through selected portions of Proverbs ("Perfect Wisdom," "Manly Purity," "Things God Hates," "Warnings Against Laziness"), and Wednesday evenings have spent much of the year in Philippians ("To Live Is Christ," "The Mind of Christ," "Likemindedness," "Reaching for the Goal"). Guest preachers and missionaries also fill the pulpit from time to time.
What a First-Time Guest Should Know
Refuge Baptist makes the experience of a first visit as straightforward as possible. The people are described as friendly and welcoming, and no one will single out a guest for what they are wearing. Most members dress in business or business-casual attire, and the pastor generally wears a suit and tie on Sundays, but visitors are told simply to come in whatever makes them comfortable.
A typical worship service includes singing from the hymnbook, prayer, an offering (visitors are welcome but never pressured to give), and the sermon itself, preached directly from Scripture. Bibles are available in the auditorium, but guests are encouraged to bring their own.
Families with children are well looked after. Sunday Bible classes for children meet during the 9:30 to 10:00 a.m. Sunday School hour. During the two Sunday worship services, a safe, supervised area is provided for little ones - generally infants through age four - staffed by qualified adult workers. Many families, however, keep their children with them in the service, and that is equally welcome.
What We Believe
Refuge Baptist publishes a full doctrinal statement as a downloadable PDF, and the church states its convictions plainly. The 66 books of the English Bible are held to be inspired by God in every part and every word, and are the sole authority of faith and practice. God is one Triune God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - coequal, coeternal and identical in nature. Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, born of a virgin, whose vicarious death on the cross provides redemption for all who receive it.
The church teaches that salvation is the gift of God, received by grace through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that the redeemed are kept by God's power and secure in Christ forever. Believers are called to a life of practical separation from worldliness and apostasy. Refuge Baptist holds to a pre-tribulational, pre-millennial view of the Second Coming, expects the imminent rapture of the Church, and looks for a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on earth. The church teaches a bodily resurrection of both the saved and the lost, an eternal state of blessing or judgment, the personal reality and final punishment of Satan, and creation in six literal twenty-four-hour days, with open rejection of evolution and theistic evolution as unscriptural theories of origin.
From New Zealand to Fiji to Cumming: The Pastor's Story
Pastor Bob Ensminger brings decades of cross-cultural ministry experience to Refuge Baptist. He trusted Christ as a child, but during his teen years began to doubt his salvation. At nineteen, while working at a church camp, the Lord renewed that conviction, and at the same time directed him toward full-time ministry. He transferred from a study of Electrical Engineering to Appalachian Bible Institute (now College), graduating in 1977, and joined United Missionary Fellowship (now Biblical Ministries Worldwide) a year later.
In 1980 he began teaching and church-planting work in New Zealand, where he and his wife Martha married in June 1981. The door to New Zealand closed in 1983, redirecting the Ensmingers to Hawaii, where Bob served as interim pastor of Maili Bible Church for eight months. In 1985 they moved again, this time to a church-planting ministry on the island of Savai'i in Samoa, where they served for five years. In 1991 the Lord opened the door to Fiji, where Bob and Martha spent more than twenty-six years in church planting and leadership training.
The Ensmingers returned to the United States in December 2017 and, in November 2018, accepted the call to pastor Refuge Baptist Church. They began their ministry at Refuge on January 27, 2019. Pastor Ensminger's stated passion is to see people come to Christ in salvation and then grow in the Word of God, and his pulpit ministry is shaped by the conviction that the Bible should be preached clearly and expounded verse by verse. The Ensmingers have five married children and nine grandchildren.
Missions Around the World
Refuge Baptist Church takes seriously the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20 and supports a roster of missionaries and church-planting families across several continents:
- The Boyles. Richard Boyle now pastors Marysvale Baptist Church in Marysvale, Utah, where he preaches, teaches, and maintains a daily one-minute radio broadcast, along with other outreach in the community.
- The Carlyles. Michael Carlyle has joined Bibles International (the translation arm of Baptist Mid Missions), serving as a language consultant in the Scripture Engagement Department and training pastors in how to teach God's Word in their native languages.
- Rachel Steffensmeier. Rachel teaches music and composition at BJ Memorial Bible College in the Philippines and carries out an evangelistic outreach to women and children. She serves with Gospel Fellowship Association Missions.
- The Seawrights. Based in Thailand, the Seawrights focus on specialized Bible studies, church planting and evangelism. Their sending church is Falls Berean Bible Church in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, and they serve under Gospel Fellowship Association in Greenville, South Carolina.
- The Tacons. Joey, Jenny, Alex and Maddie Tacon are on their first term as missionaries to Italy and are accountable to Baptist World Mission in Decatur, Alabama.
- The Minnicks. The Minnick family serves with Gospel Fellowship Missions in Brisbane, Australia, in church-planting ministry.
The Pastor's Corner and a Library of Teaching
Beyond the pulpit, Pastor Ensminger writes regularly in The Pastor's Corner, a series of articles posted to the church's teaching page. A recurring theme is "Why the Bible?" - a multi-part walk through 2 Timothy 3:16 and the profit, doctrine and reproof of Scripture. Other pieces include "For Our Good," "Who Is Your Shepherd?," "Monday Morning Blues," and "Heavenly Citizenship - Eternal Security." The full archive of past sermons is kept online, with recordings of the Sunday morning, Sunday afternoon and Wednesday evening services stretching back through long, verse-by-verse series. Five short video messages on the subject of eternity are also available under the title Five Questions About Eternity.
Refuge Baptist Church sits on Pilgrim Mill Road with its doors open three times a week, its pulpit committed to the Word, its song service rooted in the hymns of the faith, and its people gathered to love God, love one another, and carry the gospel to the nations.