Category: About Us

Donations

by Rick Shrader

Thank you for your financial and prayer support of this ministry.  All proceeds go to Aletheia Baptist Ministries.

Donations may be made in two ways:

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I would like to thank all of you for reading this publication and also for your end of the year gifts which you have so generously given throughout the years.  We have never wanted this to be a support ministry that takes needed money from church budgets. We appreciate your freewill gifts.  Please follow us on Facebook and on this blog.  Thank you!

Rick & Ann Shrader

**Please contact our office (aletheiaoffice@gmail.com) if you have any questions about ministry support.

 

 

Brief History

by Rick Shrader

Ministry Description

 

Aletheia Baptist Ministries is a Baptist organization that is fundamental and conservative in its philosophy, local church in its emphasis, as well as premillennial and dispensational in its theology.

ABM believes that the present trend among Baptist churches toward contemporary methodologies is a detriment to the gospel ministry and an affront to the holiness of God.  We do not believe that methods alone, no matter how pragmatically successful they may be, promote true belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Brief History

 

In 1993, Dr. Rick Shrader, then pastor of Bethel Baptist Church, Ft. Collins, CO, felt the need to begin writing a paper which he called Aletheia (the Greek word for “truth”). Seeing the growing trend toward compromise of godliness in conservative churches, Dr. Shrader began speaking out in a monthly publication to local church pastors and Christian educators. The paper is now in its twentieth year.

In 1997 Dr. Peter Slobodian (Dr. Shrader’s father-in-law) began Baptist Global Mission of which Dr. Shrader became the secretary. This was a foreign mission board actively involved in Russian and Ukrainian missions until Dr. Slobodian’s death in 2005. In the early years of that mission, Dr. Shrader made his Aletheia paper the writing arm of the mission board. Upon Dr. Slobodian’s death, Dr. Shrader became the president of Baptist Global Mission and suggested that the mission change its name to Aletheia Baptist Ministries and focus exclusively on home missions within the United States. This was unanimously accepted by the board of directors.

In 2005 ABM began a home mission emphasis using Kansas City as a geographical base for the project. The immediate goal was to plant 10-15 churches in 20 years within a 200 mile radius of Kansas City. This would be done by building a basis of education through a Bible Institute, promoting a conservative local church philosophy through an interactive website and other literature, and continually seeking men who would join in this endeavor.

As these goals are achieved, our prayer is that churches will be born and built to God’s glory, and that the gospel of Jesus Christ will be preached in more areas because of this ministry.

 

Core Beliefs

by Admin

Statement of Faith

 

 

 

The following is our statement of faith. For each doctrine we give a brief but direct statement of what we understand the Bible to abundantly teach in that area. Verses are included for reference and are not intended to be exhaustive but exemplary of the Bible’s teaching.

 

 

Section 1 – The Bible

We believe that the Bible is God’s only written revelation to man (1 Cor 2:9-10); that it was supernaturally inspired by God’s Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:20-21) and, therefore, is the perfect and infallible rule for doctrine and practice (2 Tim 3:16-17).  We believe that the Bible is to be interpreted literally (2 Peter 1:20), or normally, in its grammatical and historical context. We believe that it is inerrant and infallible in all subjects it addresses (Heb 4:12).

 

 

Section 2 – God

We believe there is one and only one true and living God (Deut. 6:4). He is the eternal Being who, being completely separate from the world, created the world and everything in it (Eph. 3:9). He has made Himself known to His creation as God the Father (Eph. 4:6), God the Son (John 14:9-10) and God the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:4,9), commonly called the Trinity. He is not three gods in one but one God manifested in three persons.

 

 

Section 3 – Jesus Christ

We believe that Jesus Christ is fully God (Jn 10:30) and has existed with God throughout eternity (Mic 5:2). He is the second person of the God-head who voluntarily laid aside the prerogatives of His position (though not His divine essence) for the sake of incarnation (Phil 2:5-8). He was born of a virgin (Isa 7:14), lived a sinless life (Acts 3:14), died and rose again bodily for our redemption (Acts 3:15). He ascended back into heaven and is now seated at God’s right hand (Heb 10:12) making everlasting intercession for the saints (Heb 7:25).

 

 

Section 4 – The Holy Spirit

We believe that the Holy Spirit is fully God (Acts 5:4, 9) and exists as a divine person in the God-head (Rom 15:13). His unique job is to convict the world of man’s sinfulness, God’s righteousness, and the world’s coming judgment (Jn 16:8-11). He is the regenerating agent for salvation (Jn 3:5-7), the baptizing agent at salvation (1 Cor 12:13), and the intercessor in salvation (Rom 8:26).

 

 

Section 5 – Human Beings

We believe that man was created directly and immediately by God in His image and likeness (Gen 1:26-27). Man, therefore, unlike any other creature, is created to find his life’s fulfillment and fellowship in God (Acts 17:28). By man’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden, he forfeited that fellowship and became a sinner separated from God’s favor (Rom 5:12). Because man is an eternal being, possessing a soul made in God’s image, he will live eternally (Rev 20:12).

 

 

 

Section 6 – Spirit Beings

We believe that God created spirit beings called angels (Psa 68:17). From among these holy ministers of God, some fell into sin following Satan as their head (Isa 14:12, 2 Peter 2:4, Rev 12:9). We call those that remained holy “angels” (Rev 5:2) and those that sinned “demons” or “devils” (Rev 16:14). These beings, good and bad, are the only created beings that exist in purely spirit form without the need of a body (Heb 1:14).

 

 

 

Section 7 – Sin

We accept the fact that Adam and Eve were real persons (1 Cor 15:45-47). Their transgression was in direct disobedience to God’s command (Gen 2:17) and by that disobedience, death, including physical, spiritual and eternal, came upon them and all of their posterity (Rom 5:12). All human beings, therefore, are conceived carrying Adam’s sinfulness and are thereby sinners by nature (Psa 51:5). Man’s present state without Christ is one of being spiritually dead in that sin (Eph 2:1).

 

 

Section 8 – Salvation

Salvation is provided by the person (deity) and work (bodily resurrection) (Rom 10:9-10) of Jesus Christ for any sinner (1 Tim 2:1,4,6) who will repent of his sinfulness (2 Cor 7:10) and trust Christ as his Savior (1 Thes 1:9). This trust is not a work that man can do of his own merit (Eph 2:8-9) but is rather an act of acceptance of the work already done on his behalf by Christ (Titus 3:5). When a person has received Christ as Savior, it is God’s will for him to live a holy life (1 Thes 4:3). We believe that once a person has received Christ as Savior he is eternally secure in the keeping power of God (Jude 24).

 

 

Section 9 – The Church

The Church is God’s unique plan for this dispensation of grace (Eph 3:2, 3, 10). All those who have been saved since the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ have been placed into Christ’s body by Holy Spirit baptism (Jn 14:20, Acts 1:5, 1 Cor 12:13). It is God’s will, therefore, that every believer assemble together with other believers in a local church body (Heb 10:25, 1 Cor 5:4) and practice the ordinances of baptism (Matt 28:19-20) and the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor 11:23-26). The church must take accountability for its members to keep them from falling back into a life of sinfulness (Matt 18:15-17).

 

 

 

Section 10 – The End Times

 

 

We believe that the next event in biblical prophecy is the imminent rapture of the church (1 Thes 4:13-16) in which those who are saved will escape the Tribulation (1 Thes 5:9). After the rapture, the seven year tribulation period will take place on the earth (Rev 7:14) in order for God to judge those left in unbelief (Rev 6:17). At the end of the seven years, Jesus Christ will return to the earth with the redeemed (Rev 19:11-16) to bind Satan (Rev 20:2) and to establish a thousand year kingdom (Rev 20:3-7) promised to saints of all ages. After the thousand years, God will judge the lost of all ages at the great White Throne judgment (Rev 20:11-15). The lost will be tormented forever in the lake of fire (Rev 20:14) and the redeemed will then live forever in heaven, the New Jerusalem (Rev 21:2).

 

 

 

Section 11 – The Eternal State

We believe that the Bible teaches a literal heaven (Rev 21-22) and a literal hell (Rev 20:14-15) and only those two destinations for the souls of all mankind. We believe that both are real to the senses and that both last forever (Matt 13:42-43). The New Jerusalem is equated with heaven (Rev 21:2) and will be the eternal abode for the righteous (Rev 22:1-6) while the lake of fire will be the eternal abode of the lost (Rev 22:18-19).

 

 

Conclusion

 

Our hope is that these beliefs will be a source of encouragement and will find a common bond in the hearts of other believers so that they may desire to join with us in fellowship.