From James, (Paul and Luke).
When one considers that the ICOC and ICC, both essentially believe that water baptism is the moment that salvation is imparted to the candidate by grace and through faith, it might seem surprising that long standing ICOC members have objections to ICC baptisms, and their concerns therefore also extend, to the rapid numerical and geographic growth of the ICC. Our European World Sector closed the year 2023 at 577 disciples in 12 cities, having had 216 souls added in baptisms throughout Europe in London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Berlin and Stockholm, Warsaw, Lviv and Kiev. Of note, the Paris church exceeded 100 members and planted the Brussels church in 2023! Additionally, we announced the planting of Barcelona this year!
But recent responses in 2024 to some of this good news and chats I’ve had with old friends and current ICOC members from some of these cities was disconcerting.
One reply could be broken down in these bullet points.

1. Reply had a positive false start. Looked like encouragement until you read the rest.
2. Been there, done that and too many people we baptised left the church.
3. Even though it looks and feels good to baptise, in the end because those converts won’t get a chance to mature, but instead will be quickly trained to evangelise and teach other people the bible, they will fail to develop deep faith and trust in God and His deep love for them. They will leave specifically because they were sharing their faith and studying the Bible with other people too soon after their baptism.
4. Repeated the 1st objection (no 2.) but with emotional emphasis of his heart sinking for those poor people who leave the church. Too many who you baptise will leave the church.

This reply is filled with the rethoritic of ‘The ICOC will never go back to the way we were because it failed’. (summary of Gordon Ferguson – ‘My three lives’)

Overcoming the ICOC Objections to baptisms.
You will notice that the main ICOC objection to the explosive growth of the ICC, is that the ICOC had so many who were baptised prior to the 2003 catastrophic events, who left the faith. Those who hold this view are people who largely regard themselves as faithful disciples still attending former ICOC congregations. It’s been the 20 year anniversary of the break up of the ICOC in 2023, and the local ICOC groups in London are still finding it impossible to be unified, with disagreements leading to organisational splits over finance, oversight and administration and new associated, yet seperate groups forming in attempts to create spiritual recovery. This environment is essentially a pool of ineffectiveness that has been forced to admit defeat regarding the goal of world evangelism due to a number of failed attempts at revival. It is within this environment that this opinion has flourished regarding the negative view of the rapid growth of the ICC in Europe and the rest of the world. Indeed, for people who are used to thinking reasonably and truthfully it is necessary to come up with some kind of rationale to explain away what is happening in the Movement of God.
Just as the teaching on baptism distinguishes the Movement of God from the denominations that endorse a number of mutually contradictory baptisms, the teaching of the former ICOC churches now appears to be significantly departing from that which they believed prior to 2003. Indeed it is going more toward the Mainline churches of Christ where Jesus is often taken as Saviour but not as Lord (with regards to the Mission). Of course, Jesus cannot be saviour without being Lord.

In the ICOC up until 2003 and the ICC since 2004 young converts were (and are) taught to share their faith and also to study the Bible with others up to the level of their skill to do so. Faithful disciples who do this, see it as a deep source of faith and inspiration not only to learn these skills but also to witness the results when someone they meet, has the same faithful response to the bible and the same positive changes in their life that they did. Ultimately for ICOC members  to blame evangelism for the falling away of faithful disciples, they are simultaneously praising their own personal resilience to remain faithful, in spite of all the evangelism they did in their earlier years. They have also taken on a huge burden of unnecessary guilt for those they previously encouraged or actually trained to evangelise!
In 2013 my wife met, and I studied the Bible all the way through to baptism, with a young man named Paul. I was not a young Christian. I had been trained to evangelise and study the Bible with others since my baptism in 1991. Although I have only been in full-time ministry for brief periods of time and have only been in low-level positions of leadership I have continued to do this for 33 years. I studied through and baptised Paul after a few weeks.
Here’s what he had to say when I quizzed him last week about this matter of how he was converted…

JAMES :Would you agree, disagree or be neutral regarding the following 2 statements?

1. Sharing my faith and leading studies was only a percentage of what matured me as a young disciple. And why do you give this answer?

2. Teaching young Christians to share and study with others is why so many people fall away. And why do you give this answer?

PAUL :Strongly disagree for both.

1. Those things helped me mature by dealing with rejection, heartbreak, burnout, discouragement in a healthy way. Led me to go back to God

2. For the second statement, it’s quite the opposite. Teaching young Christians to share and study keeps them faithful! Helps them accomplish their mission – Luke 19:10, Matthew 28:18-20.

After a few years Paul actually met and converted Luke. Here’s how Luke answered the other questions.

James:

1. How soon after you were baptized or before you were baptized or after you started studying the Bible, did you start actively sharing your faith? How do you think this helped you build faith in God? What were the challenges?

Luke:

1. I started sharing my faith (without knowing that I was sharing my faith!) straight away in the bible studies. Before I got baptised I had someone I met already doing advanced studies. I tend to think of faith and evangelism in this way: “If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it!”

James:

2. How soon after your baptism did you start leading studies? How do you think this helped you develop your faith? Do you now help other people to do that? How do you see that helps them?

Luke:

2. I don’t remember exactly. Fairly soon, but then I switched my focus to being in as many studies as possible that other people led, so that I could learn from them. With those in my ministry, I try to get them to lead studies straight out of the water.

Both these men are now married with children and work as Evangelists in the church. Their testimony proves that evangelism, bringing guests and leading bible studies is something that is a positive thing for disciples. It is not something that makes them want to fall away. This exposes a great lie that is propagated within the former ICOC congregations and by ex-members of ICOC and ICC, whose view is entirely bourne out of the fact that they no longer evangelise! But those who are actually still evangelising are not blaming it for anything other than inspiration. So the idea that it is the evangelism itself that causes people to fall away… Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact to stop young disciples getting involved in the conversion studies of others, sharing their faith and seeking others in need of revival is to deprive them of their God given right to grow. This new false teaching in the ICOC, is essentially causing the disease of lukewarmness to be given to spiritual infants.

The argument that I have presented so far is the life experience of faithful disciples. In part three I will look at examples from Scripture.