Bible Baptist Church
forms in Dickinson[, ND]

By K. DILSE [1997]    Drugs and hard liquor took a Dickinson man down a bad path for many years.    At 13 he was nipping at the bottle, doing drugs and many other things he's too embarrassed to name.    "I looked at myself as [being] a pretty wicked sinner," he said.    But one spring day more than 15 years ago, he converted.    God -- his true friend released him from a valley of trouble.    Dan Walters, a new Dickinson minister, [repented and] accepted Christ as his personal Saviour during a church service in Grand Forks in 1985 -- just three days after he moved there from Texas.    "I trusted Christ that morning," he said.   "That morning in the ser- vice, I went forward by invitation to trust God as my Saviour."    That commitment led Walters to study the Bible from cover to cover so he could quote verses while he preached his faith.    Sunday, Nov. 9 he led the first worship at a new Bible Baptist Church in Dickinson.    Walters and his wife Brenda, and children Joel, Leah and Seth, were one of three families that attended the service.    With the Lord's help, people will come to the Dickinson congre- gation, the born-again Christian said.    Eventually, he hopes the church can build a new facility.    For now Sunday services are held in the SDA Church [building] in Dickinson.    Walters said the Bible Baptist Church is not part of the Baptist denomination, they are an indepen- dent church.    "We call ourselves the Bible Baptist Church for a reason.   We follow the Bible as much as we can, knowing we are sinners.   We seek to base our faith and practice on the Word of God, solely."    He plans to spread the good

Dan Walters news of the Bible to people in Dickinson.    At Sunday services Walters leads the congregation in song, preaching the Bible and respond- ing by an "invitation" from the preacher to accept God as their Saviour.    "It's not an invitation to be bap- tised or to be religious.   It's asking them to come to trust the Lord," Wal- ters, 37, said.    The invitation was the only thing that could force him to quit the habitual sins that were ruining his life.    He said he tried about every- thing -- "it didn't do anything."    "I had to go to Christ and I had to believe with all my heart and ask Him to be my Saviour," he said.    "The thing that impressed me most (about the Bible Baptist Church) was that they actually preached from the Bible," he said.    At that service in Grand Forks, he heard at least 50 passages quoted.    Members of the Bible Baptist Church follow the basic belief that salvation by grace is through faith.    Grace is unmerited favor and faith is the door to salvation.    "Being saved is the work of God in the heart."