The first step involves developing a relationship with an unbeliever. This includes using your personal testimony as a bridge into sharing the good news of the gospel. This is the inverse of grabbing somebody by the lapels and shouting, “Brother, are you saved?”

After a relationship is established, you can move naturally into a presentation of the gospel using the alliterated words realize, repent, and receive.

First, according to Scripture, people need to realize that they are sinners. If we do not realize that we are sinners, we will not recognize our need for a savior. The Bible says we “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

Furthermore, one must repent of their sins. Repentance is an old English word that describes a willingness to turn from sin toward Jesus Christ. It literally means a complete U-turn on the road of life-a change of heart and a change of mind. It means having a willingness to follow Jesus and receive Him as Savior and Lord. Jesus said, “Repent and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15).

Finally, true belief means a willingness to receive. To truly receive is to trust in and depend on Jesus Christ alone to be the Lord of our lives here and now and our Savior for all eternity. It takes more than knowledge (the Devil knows about Jesus). It takes more than agreement that the knowledge we have is accurate (the Devil agrees that Jesus is Lord). What it takes is trust in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life. The requirements for eternal life are based not on what we can do but on what Jesus Christ has done. He stands ready to exchange His perfection for our imperfection.

According to Jesus Christ, those who realize they are sinners, repent of their sins, and receive Him as Savior and Lord are “born again” (John 3:3)-not physically, but spiritually. And with this spiritual birth must come growth.

Because we are called to make disciples, not converts, we also need to be equipped to lead those who receive Christ as Savior and Lord through the basic steps of discipleship and growth as new believers.

Consider what would happen if every evangelical Christian led just one person to faith in Christ each year. If we began with only twelve committed Christians and each of them led one person to Christ and discipled that person, next year there would be twenty-four believers. If each of them in turn led one person to Christ and discipled that person, the third year there would be forty-eight believers. If this process continued, it would take less than thirty years to evangelize the six billion or more people alive today on planet Earth! If in the same time frame the population doubled, it would take only one additional year.^l

Many people today run from church to church in search of the ultimate experience. No experience, however, can compare with that of the Holy Spirit working through you in the process of bringing someone to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

—Hank Hanegraaff

Hank Hanegraaff is president of the Christian Research Institute and host of the Bible Answer Man broadcast heard daily throughout the United States and Canada. For a list of stations airing the Bible Answer Man, or to listen online, log on to www.equip.org.

The Protestant churches which practice infant baptism (notably Anglicans and Lutherans) generally regard baptism as a part of the salvation process, but not necessarily an indispensable part. Most other Protestant churches regard baptism as a command which all new Christians are expected to obey, and without which full membership in the church is denied, but not as an absolute requirement for salvation. And a very few churches (notably the Friends, or Quakers) do not even practice the ordinance of baptism, on the premise that water baptism was for the Jews and that it is baptism in the Spirit that “counts.”

The biblical teaching on this subject would seem to indicate that the extreme positions of baptism as absolutely essential to salvation (as taught by some in the Church of Christ) and as an outmoded ritual that need not be practiced at all (as taught by the Friends) are aberrations that should be rejected as unbiblical and divisive (though many in both those churches may be acknowledged as genuine Christians).

To begin with, the Bible is very clear in its teachings that all Christians are expected to be baptized in water. Jesus told His disciples that they were to baptize new disciples of all nations, not just Jews (Matt. 28:19), and since it is Christ alone who baptizes men in the Spirit (Mark 1:8), the baptism administered by the disciples must be in water. This means that to dispense with water baptism is to disobey Christ.

On the other hand, the New Testament makes it equally clear that men can become saved as Christians prior to receiving water baptism. Cornelius’s family received the Holy Spirit and was manifesting the gifts of the Spirit after hearing the gospel but before being baptized (Acts 10:44-48). This observation must be balanced, however, by the fact that baptism was not an “optional extra” for Cornelius’s family; it was a command (10:48) that they were expected to obey. However, it was not obedience to this command that saved them, but their believing in Christ (10:43). Baptism is the expected initial outward response to the gospel, but it is not a part of the gospel itself (1 Cor. 1:17).

There are a number of prooftexts which are often cited to prove that the Bible makes baptism mandatory for salvation. Some of the most common such prooftexts are Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16, Mark 16:16, John 3:5, Romans 6:4, and 1 Peter 3:21. A careful examination of each of these texts in context will show that none of them prove that baptism is necessarily prerequisite for salvation, though they do prove that baptism was an assumed initiatory response to the gospel of salvation.

In other words, these texts prove only that baptism is regularly associated with conversion and salvation, rather than absolutely required for salvation. A helpful analogy is the marriage ceremony as the initiatory rite of commitment to marriage. It is an expected precursor to married life, and is even required by law (in most countries), but the state often recognizes marriages as valid without the benefit of a ceremony (as in common-law marriages), and thus the ceremony is not absolutely necessary for the marriage to be valid.

Thus, when we say that baptism is not essential for salvation, we do not mean that it may be dispensed with or that God does not expect new converts to be baptized. He does. We may go even further and say that if a person claims to be a Christian, understands that the Lord Jesus Christ commanded every Christian to be baptized, and yet refuses to submit to baptism, it may very well be (though we cannot say absolutely in every case) that his profession of faith is a sham and that he is not truly saved. (Returning to our illustration, under normal circumstances for a person to say they wish to be married but to refuse to be wed in a legal ceremony indicates insincerity on that person’s part.)

We therefore urge all unbaptized believers to repent of their disobedience in this matter and to be baptized immediately. Since baptism is the first act of obedience which Christ expects of every believer, no one who has not been baptized may be considered a fully-functioning member in good standing of the church, and we would say should not be invited to participate in communion or allowed to hold any office or teaching position within the church. One the other hand, we refuse to condemn all those who for various reasons have failed to be baptized, and we certainly disagree most strongly with those who assert that only those who have been baptized according to their doctrinal understanding of baptism are genuinely saved.

In sum, baptism is necessary in that Christ commands it, and all genuine Christians who understand this fact must either be baptized or be considered to be in a state of disobedience and rebellion against Christ. But baptism is not prerequisite to being born again or forgiven of one’s sins, and it is possible, however irregular, for persons who have not been baptized to be saved nevertheless through faith in Jesus Christ.

The ALCC is a Pentecostal church which is rooted in the “Latter-Rain” or “Restoration” movement which swept Pentecostalism in the late 1940s and the 1950s and which is continuing to grow rapidly today. According to the booklet, An Introduction To Abbott-Loop Christian Center (ALCC, 1979), ALCC “has a strong heritage in Bethel Temple in Seattle, Washington” (p. 11), which is a Restoration church. ALCC has become so independent and eclectic that they do not consider themselves strictly a part of the Latter-Rain movement; however, their theological and historical roots are for the most part in that movement.

In its statement of belief ALCC affirms that, “there is one God, externally existent in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost” (Introduction, p. 25). This would appear to be a sound affirmation of the Trinity and, in a paper entitled “Frequently Asked Questions About What Goes On at Abbott-Loop Chapel,” Wayne Coggin (a pastor there) says, “We believe in the trinity all the way.” However, they also baptize in the name of “the Lord Jesus Christ, a distinctive practice of the Oneness Pentecostals or “Jesus Only” sects. More over, this is understood to be an expression of their belief that “the Lord Jesus Christ” is the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which is a classic Oneness belief. They go further and explain that the name of the Father is “the Lord,” the name of the Son is “Jesus,” and the name of the Holy Spirit is “Christ” (Jay Zinn, Water Baptism, 1982, pp.3-4).

This teaching is both unbiblical and contradictory. An examination of the salutations, or greetings, at the beginning of the New Testament epistles will demonstrate that “the Lord Jesus Christ” is a name for the Son alone, not for all three Persons (Rom. 1:7; 1Cor. 1:3, 2Cor. 1:3; Gal. 1:3; Eph. 1:2,3; Phil. 1:2; Philem. 3; 1 Pet. 1:3; 2 John 3; see also 2 Cor. 13:14). It is also contradictory to say that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three persons and then go on to say that they are all titles of the Lord Jesus Christ.

At best, the teaching at ALCC on the Trinity is extremely confused and contradictory to Scripture. At worst, it could be interpreted as a heretical misinterpretation of the Trinity However, we have been in contact with John Owen, one of ALCC’s leading teachers, and have talked with other members of ALCC and, based on what they told us, it appears that ALCC does believe in the Trinity as taught in orthodox Christianity. Owen stated that what they believe is that the Father and the Holy Spirit dwell in Jesus the Son but that Jesus is not the Father nor is He the Holy Spirit. On this basis we would conclude that their teaching is confused and aberrant but not heretical.

Other aspects of the teaching and ministry of ALCC to which CRI has objections are the following: modern-day apostles; shepherding (a la Bob Mumford, whom ALCC apostle Dick Benjamin credits with having shaped their views on shepherding); and the teaching that “not all Christians will be included in the bride.” If you need information on any of these subjects, please let us know.

In conclusion, we do not consider ALCC heretical or a cult. In our opinion, ALCC is in some respects an aberrational movement which Christians who wish to be faithful to God’s Word should not support.