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The requirements for membership are no different from those of the first century church. Every member must hold the Bible to be God's inspired word (2 Tim. 3:16). Every member, relying on the grace of God, must accept Jesus, not only as personal savior, but as Lord of every area of his/her life

(Luke 9:23). Every member must be born again (immersed in water as a believing, committed adult for the forgiveness of sins) (John 3:1-5; Acts 2:38). (Link to Baptism Article ). And every member must have the samepurpose as Jesus - ¡°to seek and save the lost.¡± (Luke 19:10; Heb. 12: 15).

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Certainly we do not have a corner on the truth. Our Bible is the same as everyone else's. It is possible for anyone anywhere to read, apply God's word and become Jesus' disciple; however, it is difficult for most people to see through the traditions with which they were raised without someone to help. Some people have become disciples on their own, but they are always eager to unite themselves with a group who is teaching and practicing what they have found to be Christianity according to the Bible. We are aware of no other group anywhere today that teaches and holds to these standards for every member to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and a member of his church. Even our critics say that what we teach is unique in the religious world.

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Perhaps our stance seems hard, but we can only follow the path that Jesus prepared, the ¡°narrow road.¡± Mainstream churches are failing to bring a lost and dying world back to God. Only a total commitment to God and his way, and a total dependence on his power holds any eternal hope for any of us. Check out who we are, what we teach and how we live; and come join us in our quest to be the true church of Jesus Christ.

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Revolution Through Restoration

From Jerusalem to Rome, from Boston to Moscow

Restoration in Boston

During my last year in Charleston, the elders of the Lexington Church of Christ in Massachusetts, contacted me to be their pulpit and campus minister. Though this mainline church was desperate as they considered closing their doors because their number had shrunk to about 30, I hesitated for five months. I told the people in that congregation that in order for me to come, every member must vow to become (in the terminology of that day) "totally committed."

On June 1,1979, history was made as 30 would be disciples gathered on a Friday night in the living room of Bob and Pat Gempel. Our collective vision was a church where not only the college students were totally committed, but also the teens, singles, marrieds and senior citizens. This was a radical concept not witnessed in any other church or movement in my experience to this day. Another building block in our ministry came about when Pat Gempel and I had a strong disagreement during our first month. It was quickly settled by Elena, myself and Bob and Pat as we vowed, as the two most influential families in the church, to always be unified in Christ. The four of us became best of friends. This commitment to unity laid the foundation for a great church and a movement that was truly family - the family of God.

As in all families, a commitment to unity is not a onetime event. It is a lifetime process. Satan continually attempts to divide the believers and sow mistrust and insecurity. Elena' s and my relationship with the Gempels taught us how to build and maintain family in the church. (Since then this godly principle has helped us form a team approach to leadership which maximizes the talents and contributions of each leader.) To this very day, our friendship with the Gempels has been nurtured through times of victory and peace as well as misunderstanding and actual conflict. I personally dislike conflict, as most people do, but conflict Scripturally resolved forges closer relationships (Matthew 5:23,24; 18:15-35).

This commitment to honesty, forthrightness and caring has been repeated over and over throughout the Kingdom. "Family" lasts a lifetime and weathers the storms because our foundation is not each other' s perfection, but the rock of Jesus' love and grace. [Now there are over 100 churches! In every one of them there is a different ambience, but every disciple feels at home in any of our congregations, no matter their race, sex or nationality. The unselfish unity and warmth among the churches and their evangelists, elders and other leaders distinguish our movement as disciples. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another" (John 13:34,35).]

Early on I developed a series consisting of nine Bible studies on the "first principles" (Hebrews 6:1-3). The members of the church were called to memorize these studies and then teach others to become Christians. The most impacting was called "Discipleship" where, from my study of Scripture, I taught what was clear in Acts 11:26: SAVED = CHRISTIAN = DISCIPLE, simply meaning that you cannot be saved and you cannot be a true Christian without being a disciple also. I purposely developed this study to draw a sharp biblical distinction between the Lexington (later renamed Boston) Church of Christ and all other groups. I taught that to be baptized, you must first make the decision to be a disciple and then be baptized. I saw that people in and outside of our fellowship had been baptized without this understanding and then, in time, developed a disciple's commitment to make Jesus Lord of their entire life.

I taught that their baptism was invalid because a retroactive understanding of repentance and baptism was not consistent with Scripture. Upon conviction by the Scriptures, most people in the Lexington (Boston) church were rebaptized: Doug Arthur, Joyce (Crosby) Arthur, Lynne (Hembree) Green, the Morehead family, the Foss family, the Crosby family, and, just before he arrived, Steve Johnson. Others like Bob and Pat Gempel, Paul and Helen McNiel, Lisa Johnson, Chris (Timmis) Fuqua, Jim Lloyd, Don Lee and Doug Blough were not rebaptized, as they felt after studying the Word, their conversions were true. Out of these convictions from the Scriptures came one of the crucial characteristics unique to our movement--a true church is composed only of disciples (Luke 9:23; John 4:1; Acts 2:41,42).

I have never believed or taught that anyone has to be baptized into the Boston Church of Christ to be saved. The Scriptures clearly teach you must be baptized into Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and then, the Lord adds you to his church (Acts 2:36-47; Romans 6:3,4; 1 Corinthians 12:13; Acts 2:41,42). However, I do not know of any other church, group or movement that teaches and practices what we teach as Jesus taught in Acts 2:41,42: one must make the decision to be a disciple, then be baptized for the forgiveness of their sins to be saved and receive the Holy Spirit. When one is born again at baptism (Titus 3:5), one must have Jesus' heart and attitude to do anything, go anywhere and give up everything for God. After baptism each disciple is taught to obey all the commands of Jesus as one grows and goes making disciples. If this is what God teaches in the Bible, then we are God's movement.

One very interesting and crucial event occurred in the fourth year of our existence a building we bought in downtown Boston burned down. We were all heartbroken, but God was just guiding our way. Church history, we found that the first church buildings did not exist until the third century. We concluded that buildings had taken too much money from people and slowed the growth of the church. We then rented the Boston Opera House for Sundays and we met in homes (house churches) for our midweek services. In this way, the elders and I decided to invest our funds in people instead of mortgages, interest and stone.

At that time, we were the only Church of Christ of any kind in Boston proper. We took the name, the Boston Church of Christ, because the churches in the Bible were simply called by the name of their city. In time, we also came to a conviction from chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation that there was to be only one church in one city, according to the Bible. After all, if one church multiplied disciples, then it would, in time fill the whole city with the teachings of Jesus (Acts 5:28).

During these times, we altered the form of our worship. No longer did we have Sunday school or Sunday evening services (both of these began in the 1800s in America). But we intensely studied Bible passages individually every day and together at our midweek service. On Sundays our church services became two hour celebrations of singing, communion, prayers, baptisms, fellowship and exhortive preaching from the Word!

Perhaps also unappreciated by the casual observer was the challenge to meet the needs and keep faithful the unprecedented number of new Christians - over 2,000 in the first six years in Boston! In the '60s and '70 s in the denominational world, there had been much discussion and writing on the "body life" of the church and "shepherding" one another. Thus, in the Crossroads movement, one another Christianity was expressed in a buddy system called "prayer partners," where each person chose their own "buddy."

With so many new Christians in the Boston church, I felt this approach was not directive enough. Building upon this concept, I came up with "discipleship partners." In these relationships, the evangelists, elders and women's counselors, after discussion and prayer, arranged for an older, stronger Christian to give direction to each of the younger, weaker ones. They were to meet weekly, but have daily contact (Hebrews 10:24,25). (Obviously, the younger discipleship partner also gives input and advice to the stronger disciple, as in any healthy relationship.)

We also saw in Scripture that Jesus primarily trained men through groups the apostles and the 72 (Luke 10:1-24). Therefore, we began discipleship groups for every Christian. (This group would usually meet at the midweek service.) Through this approach, each Christian could naturally build relationships with other Christians in addition to their discipleship partner.

Studies were done by several church growth experts that proved the greater the number of relationships in the church a new Christian possesses is directly proportional to his likelihood of remaining faithful to God. Interestingly, Dr. Milton Jones in Discipling: The Multiplying Ministry insightful comments, "A new Christian who has good relationships on all levels will achieve a maturity in Christ that is greater than other Christians who have been Christians for years, but only have [casual, non focused] relationships.

With the previously discussed system, everyone in the church would have people to meet their needs, and the multitudes of people being baptized would remain in Christ by continuing to be taught and making disciples themselves (Matthew 28:20). These restorations caused incredible controversy. However, the retention rate through all these years of all the baptisms has been about 50%, which is over five times as high as the rate in the various elements in the Churches of Christ.

Revolution Through Restoration

From Jerusalem to Rome, from Boston to Moscow

One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism

From 1983 on through the 80's, many people, especially leaders from the various elements of the Church of Christ, moved to Boston or our plantings to be disciples and to train to build churches. They were in awe of God and the unprecedented growth the Holy Spirit produced in Boston and our daughter churches (Acts 9:31).