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According to the Pattern
A Manual for Church Planting by
Edwin Stube
CONTENTS
1. Born Anew“I didn't have any hope of living, because I had a diseased liver, lungs, and heart. I had already sold my belongings and my house to pay witch doctors and doctors and to buy medicine. Finally the witch doctor wouldn't even look at me any more, because I was too sick and there was no hope any more.
“But at the last minute I heard about salvation and healing through the testimony of a Christian. I expressed my willingness to become a believer. I was prayed for. The Lord answered the prayer. He healed me and set me free from the powers of darkness. I am well and getting stronger every day.
“I have fully surrendered my life to Jesus, and my greatest desire now is to have fellowship with Him every day.”And so a man named Riadi from the village of Toyomarto in Indonesia came to be “born anew.”
The beginning of the Christian life, or being “born anew,” is a single process with four parts:
1. Believing. In order for a person to begin his new life in Christ, he must first hear the Gospel and receive it by faith. “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the Word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). Normally this means hearing someone tell about Jesus, or reading a tract or portion of the Bible. Occasionally the Lord reveals Himself directly by voice or vision, without human agency.
Preaching of the Gospel should be in “demonstration of the Spirit's power” (1 Corinthians 2:4). The Word of God spoken in the power of the Spirit, and often reinforced by healing and other miracles, produces a response in the heart of the hearer. This response constitutes the beginning of faith. The Holy Spirit convinces us of the truth of the Gospel and of our need to receive it.
Often God likes first to perform miracles to get people's attention, and then the spoken proclamation of the Gospel follows. We find that evangelism in villages around us in East Java almost always begins with a miracle. The Lord leads us to a house where someone is sick or in trouble. God heals and delivers. When the friends and neighbors collect to see what has happened, we tell them about Jesus, who performed the miracle. If we were to use words only, they would thank us pleasantly for coming, but they would not receive. They need to see the reality first, and know that the Christians have a living God.
As people reach out towards the Lord Jesus by faith, the Lord comes to them and begins some changes in their lives. They become aware of the reality of God's presence and love. When they receive this by faith, God performs a miracle in their hearts. They are justified (made righteous before God) and a sweet peace descends upon them.
2. Repenting. When we come in contact with the holiness of the living God, we become aware of our need for repentance. Repentance is a change of orientation and life-style. We have been self-centered, following our own plans and desires, perhaps worshiping our own gods, or materialistic, worldly goals. But, as we meet Jesus and begin to believe in Him, we sense the futility of our old ways and begin to catch a vision of the new life with Him in the center.
Repentance also brings an awareness of sin. We realize that our old ways, even at best, have fallen short of God's standard and have not been pleasing to Him. Suddenly we become aware of the Cross of Christ and His great loving sacrifice. With a shock we realize that God loved us so much that He gave His Son to die for us, and we confess, “O Lord, I have sinned against You. I have done wrong things. My life up to now has been a mess.” We can even enumerate the wrongs we have done, knowing that there is forgiveness in the Cross of Jesus. We cannot fully understand the mystery of the Cross, but with a glad heart, by faith, we reach out and receive the forgiveness that He offers us.
At the moment we confess our sins and our inadequacies before God, He performs another miracle. He forgives all our past wrongs, and He forgets them all. No matter what we have done or been, at the moment we repent, God changes us. All our past is gone and forgotten. He forgives us our sins and cleanses us from all unrighteousness. We are dead to sin. Our old life is dead. Since God has forgotten it, we too need not remember it.
An old man attended our meetings in a small town on the eastern end of Java. He had used many kinds of demonic power. He had lived a rough, evil life and killed many people. It was said he could bend a railroad rail with his bare hands. When people began to worship and praise the Lord, and he began to feel the Lord's presence, he went into a violent fit, so that eight men could hardly hold him. This happened several times, and each time we took authority over the evil powers that bound him. He confessed all his past sins, asking to be completely free of all things past. The Lord completely delivered him and gave him a new gentle, joyous nature. He had a new outlook and a totally new direction. His sins were forgiven and his old life was dead.
3. Being Baptized in Water. If we are dead, we need to be buried. In baptism, our old life is crucified and buried with Christ. We rise to a new life in Him (Romans 6:4). The old habits and life-style are gone. Christ becomes our life. “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). From that moment on, just by yielding our bodies and our lives to Him, we can continue in a new life, holy and pleasing to Him. In the waters of baptism, God performs a miracle in us. We come out a new creature.
Sometimes baptism may even bring healing of the body. One day in Celebes an old woman was converted in one of our meetings. The next morning she brought her husband, who was the head witch doctor in that area. He asked many questions, and finally believed and wanted to be baptized with his wife. The old witch doctor was badly crippled with arthritis, but when he came up out of the water, he was completely healed and transformed. According to the most recent reports we have received, he has left all his old ways and is still serving the Lord after several years.
We come out of the water of baptism a new creature. We are different, and everything around us suddenly looks different, because now we are seeing through God's eyes. We have the mind of Christ. We begin thinking as He thinks, feeling as he feels, doing as He does.
Christian baptism is baptism “in the Name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 2:38). All the authority of the Name of Jesus is given to us. We are given power of attorney. All the rights and privileges of King's sons are ours in His Name. We inherit all that He has and is. His victories become our victories; His trials become our trials; His work becomes our work. We become Jesus' brothers, bound together in one wonderful, loving family.
4. Being Baptized in the Spirit. In order to enter into the Kingdom of God we must be born anew “of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5). Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. But He is also the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit. On the day of Pentecost, the people began to believe and ask, “What next?” Peter said, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the Name of Jesus so that your sins may be forgiven. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).
The baptism in the Spirit opens the way to worship in the Spirit. Jesus said, “God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). The Spirit gives us new language for worship and prayer. He gives us “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” (Ephesians 5:19). Our worship need not be bound by the thoughts and traditions of men, but can enjoy the glorious freedom and variety of the Spirit.
The Spirit also makes us witnesses to Jesus wherever we may go. Not only do we have the desire to tell others about Jesus and to point them to Him, but also our whole life becomes a witness to Jesus. It is no longer we who live, but Christ living in us. The Christ-life is made manifest in us. The works of Christ are manifested through us by the gifts of the Spirit. The nature of Christ manifests itself in the development and growth of the fruit of the Spirit in us. People begin to see Christ, not us.
These four steps in the process of being born anew need to take place as early as possible in a new believer's experience. One step leads inevitably to the next. If the birth process is excessively prolonged, the child will die. Much confusion arises in our churches through failure to understand this principle.
If a person believes and confronts the living and holy Lord Jesus, he will immediately become aware of his need for repentance. The first time Peter met Jesus, Jesus said, “Let down the nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4). Peter took in a miraculous catch of fish. His immediate reaction was to repent. “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). In one short sentence he acknowledged his own sinfulness, and his acceptance of Jesus as Lord.
A person who repents and dies to sin should immediately be buried in the waters of baptism. Let us not keep the corpse around until it smells, or give it catechetical teaching so it understands burial. How much better, in faith, to place a new convert under the water of baptism, and let God bring him forth a new creature.
On the day of Pentecost, as Peter finished preaching, he said, “Repent and be baptized each of you . . . .” That day three thousand people were baptized and became new members of the Church. When Cornelius' family believed and received the Spirit they were baptized. The Philippian jailer and his family were baptized in the middle of the night, not even waiting for morning.
The only condition for baptism in the New Testament is repentance. If we add or subtract conditions, we change the meaning of baptism.
Baptism in the Spirit also should occur as quickly as possible. In Acts, baptism in the Spirit three times precedes baptism in water, and three times follows it closely. Jesus said that if a house is cleaned out and left empty, the demons will come back bringing their friends to play there. If people have been set free from the old bondage and habits, they need to be filled with God's Spirit, so He can teach them to pray continually and stay in constant contact with the Source of their new life.
Admittedly, not all people will be able to accept this four-fold process of being born anew instantly. The rate of speed will depend on their temperament and background, their education and hang-ups. Some people have already got stuck part way through the process.
In village evangelism among people who were hearing the Gospel for the first time, we were often able to lead them to conversion and baptism in water and the Spirit, all in an hour or two. The next day they were out witnessing to their friends and neighbors. More sophisticated people, especially those who have long been exposed to church-type theoretical Christianity, may take considerably longer.
The task of the evangelist is to lead people as quickly as possible through this four-step process of being born anew. This should be completed before the people are brought into the church. Otherwise the church will be filled up with people who are half-converted or unconverted. People who are not yet born anew cannot be taught, and certainly cannot take part in spiritual worship.
Failure to understand and practice these principles is one of the main causes of dryness and ineffectiveness, and even of conflict in our churches. One church I know almost split up over what color to paint the bathroom in the church building. Why? Because they hadn't been born anew.
In our work in forming new Christian fellowships, we have always ministered to people individually or in small groups until we were convinced that they were accepting Christ by faith as their Savior and Lord. We then urged them to be baptized in water and the Spirit. After this we instructed them in the fundamentals of Christian faith and life in small informal gatherings, before we tried to gather them together as the Body of Christ for worship. When we finally did come together for worship, all were soundly converted, born of water and the Spirit, and ready to take an active part in corporate worship. This prepared the way for rapid growth in the fellowship of the Body of Christ.
The process by which we lead people to experience rebirth is evangelism. In the following chapters we give some suggestions for evangelism based on our studies of evangelism in the Gospel and in Acts. We have practiced these principles for several years and found them effective.
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