What does Tribe teach about holy spirit baptism?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on Holy Spirit baptism starts with the conviction that three things belong together in a person's salvation without any one of them being a step above the others. Brian Higgins walked through this in the message 'Jesus Is Alive,' setting John 20, where Jesus breathes on the disciples and says 'receive the Holy Spirit,' alongside Acts 1, where the same disciples are told to wait in Jerusalem for the Spirit's power. His reading is that receiving Jesus, water baptism as a public declaration of that inward decision, and the release of the Spirit's power to walk out the new life are all part of one whole, not a sequence of spiritual promotions.
To explain what that release of power looks like, Brian used the image of a sealed alabaster jar of perfume. The fragrance is entirely present the whole time, but nothing comes out until the jar is broken open. The Spirit is not absent from a person before this happens, but something changes when the jar is opened. Brian was careful to say that a person can be genuinely saved without ever having a dramatic personal encounter with the living Jesus, and he did not want experience to become the entry requirement for salvation.
At the same time, he was equally clear that when a person does encounter the real, present Jesus, nothing and nobody can argue them out of it. The strangest thing about Christians, in his telling, is not a set of beliefs about a historical figure but the insistence that Jesus is actually alive right now, and the Spirit's power is the means by which that living Jesus becomes unmistakably real to a person.
Taught from John 20:19-27 · Acts 1:1-11
The passage taught · 1 John 1:9
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- April 12, 2026 Jesus Is Alive Brian Hunter preaches on Acts 1, the risen Jesus appearing to his disciples, and what it means to actually encounter a living Savior rather than just a religion.
Mentioned along the way
- February 6, 2023 Travel Steady Along His Path Part 4 A Wyoming congregation works slowly through Psalm 37:34, exploring what it means to wait on God, grab hold of his promises, and let him separate us from what holds us back.