Grow

Pastor Wicks set a goal over 20 years ago to provide a church for this community that would teach and preach Bible principles to produce balanced Christians. With that goal in mind, First Baptist Church has taken Biblical principles and set standards for our church. Our goal would be that you and your family would have the opportunity to find out what FBC is all about, then to jump in and grow with us.

The first step to spiritual growth is salvation. This is coming to the point in life when we see ourselves the way God sees us. We must remember that God created us to be companions and to have fellowship with Him, but ever since Adam and Eve sinned, that fellowship was broken. Not only does sin break fellowship with God, but the Bible says there is penalty for our sin. In Romans 6:23 the Bible says "the wages of sin is death". Not only do we deserve physical death because of or sin, but we deserve spiritual death, which is the Lake of Fire. God loved us so much that He didn't want us to have to go to Hell, so He sent His only Son down to this earth to pay the penalty that we owed because of our sin. Jesus Christ lived on this earth for 33 years, and then died an unthinkable death for you and me. But just because Jesus did that, does that mean everyone will go to Heaven? No, I wish it did. God is a fair God, and He offered this way of escape as a gift. Just like every gift, there must be a time when we receive the gift for ourselves. The Bible says in Romans 10:13, "For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved". When we call upon God to save us, we are receiving the gift of eternal life that was made possible through Jesus Christ. If you have not had a specific time to receive this gift of salvation, you should do that today. Simply pray and ask Jesus to save you and take you to Heaven. In Romans 10:13 we saw the promise from God that He would save us if we call upon Him.

The next step to spiritual growth is baptism. We don't believe you have to be baptized to be saved. We see baptism in the Bible as a time to show you have received Jesus as your Saviour. We baptize with full submersion to signify what Christ did for us on the cross. We stand in the water to signify Jesus on the cross, we go completely under the water to show how Christ died for us, and thankfully we come back up out of the water to show how Christ conquered death. Baptism is a special time for a Christian, and we see it in the Bible as the next step after salvation. If you have been saved, but not Scripturally baptized, we can help you with that. Please contact any staff member to set a time to get baptized.

Church membership is the 3rd step in spiritual growth. We see many examples in the New Testament how God uses the local church to spread the gospel. We feel the most effective way to see personal growth and world-wide evangelism is through the local church. Our only prerequisite to joining our church is that you have had a time when you asked Jesus to save you, and then you were baptized by immersion after that. Once someone is a member of First Baptist Church, we get them involved in ministry and give them opportunity to grow as a Christian. We hope that you find FBC a place where you could call "home".

Please call the church office at 402.296.9284 or email a staff member at jwicks@fbcplattsmouth.org if you have any questions about salvation, baptism, or church membership.