Wellspring Church has historically framed a crisis as a matter of “convictions,” “narrowness,” or resistance to truth.

 

But that framing obscures the real issue. What we examine on this page is the substance of a recent sermon and the theological claims it advances.

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The dividing line is not personality.
It is not tone.
It is not tongues.

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The dividing line is the gospel itself.

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Wellspring teaches a “gospel of the kingdom” that is not the gospel preached by the apostle Paul, not the gospel defended by A. W. Tozer, and not the gospel defended by the Reformers or by historic Christianity.

 

It is a gospel rooted in Oneness Pentecostal theology, developed at Wellspring Church through the teachings and personal revelations of Norman H. James, and enforced through institutional pressure.

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Because the gospel defines who belongs to Christ, when the Spirit is given, and how assurance is grounded, this is not a secondary disagreement. It is the issue.

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“Only one can be true.” That is correct.

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Wellspring church has repeatedly insisted that:

• truth is precise, not opinion

• only one doctrine on salvation and being born again can be true

• deviation must be refuted, not accommodated

 

That standard is fair - if it is applied honestly.

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When we do apply it, the result is unavoidable:  Wellspring’s gospel is not the gospel Paul preached.

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In the sermon, those who raise objections are not reasoned with but labeled “rabble,” and the congregation is warned not to listen to them. This is not apostolic correction; it is rhetorical exclusion. Scripture commands testing of teaching, not the silencing of those who ask whether it accords with the gospel.

 

 

What Wellspring teaches: a delayed, conditional gospel

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Wellspring’s system can be summarized this way:

• A person may believe in Jesus and be “saved”

• Yet still not be born again

• Yet still not be indwelt by the Holy Spirit

 

Until they undergo:

• a prescribed water baptism using a formula found nowhere in Scripture, defined instead by Norman James

• a subsequent Spirit baptism with speaking in tongues as verified by a human

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Until then, the person remains in a spiritual middle state - outside the Kingdom of God, without the indwelling Holy Spirit, without the remission of their sin.

 

This is not an incidental teaching. It is the structural center of Wellspring theology, and it is what allows leaders to:

• withhold assurance

• define who is “really” in

• require submission to the system for spiritual legitimacy

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This is not the gospel of grace. It is a gated gospel, with gates created by Norman James and carried on by his successors. It is not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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What Paul taught: the Spirit is given when you believe

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Paul does not speak ambiguously on this point.

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“When you believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.” (Ephesians 1:13–14)

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Paul ties the Spirit’s indwelling to belief in the gospel, not to a later ritual sequence.

 

This is not an isolated verse. Paul’s theology is consistent:

• Those who belong to Christ have the Spirit (Romans 8:9)

• The Spirit is received by faith, not by works or rites (Galatians 3:2–5)

• Union with Christ is complete at faith, not partial or provisional

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Paul never teaches:

• “saved but not born again”

• “believers who still lack the Spirit”

• “wait until elders confirm your experience”

 

If Wellspring says, “You believed - but you do not yet have the Spirit,” it is not correcting Paul.

It is contradicting him.

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Wellspring attempts to resolve this contradiction by teaching that the Holy Spirit may be “with” a person but not yet “in” them. Paul makes no such distinction. For Paul, the Spirit’s presence in the believer is what defines belonging to Christ and marks the moment of faith.

 

A framework that separates belief from indwelling - placing the Spirit alongside the believer until a later condition is met - does not come from Paul’s letters, but reflects a delayed-regeneration model historically associated with Oneness Pentecostal theology.

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In the closing prayer, the preacher asks the Lord to speak by “the Spirit that is resident within us.” Yet under Wellspring’s own teaching, some present - those who have not spoken in tongues - are said not to have the Spirit resident within them, only 'with them'. The prayer therefore either contradicts the doctrine or silently excludes part of the congregation. The tension is created not by misunderstanding, but by the theology itself.

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Acts 19 is not Paul’s gospel, it is a transitional narrative

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Wellspring repeatedly appeals to Acts 19 as proof that Paul preached a three-step gospel. Wellspring’s appeal to Acts 19 mirrors a longstanding Oneness Pentecostal reading of the passage, in which belief is treated as incomplete until a subsequent reception of the Spirit.

 

But Acts 19 describes a unique historical transition:

• disciples who knew only John’s baptism

• who had not heard that the Spirit had been given

• living in a liminal moment between covenants

 

Paul does not use Acts 19 as a universal template in his letters. Luke does not present it as a salvation formula.
 

Paul’s epistles - written to define doctrine - never say: “You may believe and still lack the Spirit.” Acts describes what happened. Paul’s letters explain what it means.

 

When the two are set against each other, Paul’s explicit teaching must govern narrative interpretation, not the other way around.

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The dividing line is not tongues

 

This must be stated clearly, because Wellspring often obscures it.

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Tongues as the only evidence of Spirit baptism has historically functioned as a secondary doctrinal dividing line between evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity. But it has never been the line that determines whether one remains within historic Christian faith.

 

There are many Trinitarian Pentecostal churches that teach tongues as the only evidence of Spirit baptism while still affirming that every believer is born again and indwelt by the Holy Spirit at the moment of true faith. Those churches remain within historic Christianity.

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Wellspring does not.​

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The issue is not the debate over tongues as the only evidence of Spirit baptism, but the denial that the Holy Spirit indwells the believer at faith. By denying the Spirit’s indwelling at belief, Wellspring necessarily denies the internal work of the Holy Spirit in bringing a person to true faith and being born again.

 

This relocates assurance from Christ to an institution, transforms leaders into gatekeepers of spiritual legitimacy, and turns the gospel into a human managed process rather than a sovereign act of God. This three-step gospel is historically associated with Oneness Pentecostal theology - a framework that Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox churches have consistently regarded as incompatible with the Christian faith. ​

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To restate, the dividing line is not tongues, nor is it whether God uses human witnesses. Scripture affirms that the gospel is proclaimed by people, but that being born again is the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit. Spiritual regeneration is not a process administered by human control, nor is it delayed until doctrinal sequencing is complete.

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In the sermon, the preacher testifies that he believed in Christ yet was not born again and did not receive the Holy Spirit until later instruction was given. This raises a critical question: if Christ Himself is the gate to the Kingdom, and Scripture teaches that entry into that Kingdom comes through the Spirit’s regenerating work, who is being credited with opening the gate - the Holy Spirit revealing Jesus Christ, or Norman James revealing the system he taught?

 

 

Paul’s warning to the Galatians cuts against Wellspring, not for it

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Wellspring invokes Galatians to warn against “distortion” of the gospel.

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But Paul’s concern in Galatians was this: adding requirements to faith that undermine the sufficiency of Christ

 

The irony is stark.

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Wellspring accuses dissenters of “another gospel,” while defending a system that:

• adds conditions after faith

• withholds full inclusion until compliance

• reframes grace as something earned through obedience to a prescribed path

 

Paul’s words were aimed at systems like Wellspring's system - not against those questioning them.

 

 

A. W. Tozer was opposed to Wellspring’s gospel of the kingdom

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Wellspring leadership has long appealed to A. W. Tozer as an authority on truth, narrowness, and doctrine.

 

But A. W. Tozer was:

• explicitly Trinitarian and opposed to Oneness theology

• opposed to the three-step gospel promoted by Norman James

• deeply concerned with systems that replace Christ-centered faith with human mediation

 

A. W. Tozer lived during the rise of Oneness Pentecostalism and early apostolic-restoration movements and was well acquainted with their theology and claims. He never claimed apostolic authority, as Norman James later did, nor did he affirm a staged “gospel of the kingdom” that conditions spiritual legitimacy on human mediation.

 

A.W. Tozer explicitly opposed the three-step framework that emerged in early twentieth-century Oneness Pentecostalism, because it redirects assurance away from Christ’s finished work and places it under human authority.

When Tozer warned about false gospels, he was warning about the very doctrines that Wellspring teaches: a three-step system that shifts trust from Christ’s finished work to controlled experiences and institutional verification.

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To quote Tozer while teaching a gospel he rejected is not fidelity. It is appropriation and it fundamentally misrepresents his beliefs.

 

As a long time senior leader of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, A. W. Tozer actively defended the church against the 3-step "gospel of the kingdom" taught in Oneness Pentecostalism and at Wellspring Church. Does the leadership of Wellspring Church consider him faithful - or “rabble”?

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Did Paul “Whisk His Disciples Away” from Other Voices?

 

In the sermon, the preacher said that in Acts 19 Paul “took them away” and “whisked them away before those winds of doctrine could undermine their foundation,” and then applied that as a pattern for Wellspring elders to insulate the congregation from dissent and outside teaching.

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But that is not what Acts 19 actually describes.

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Acts 19:8–10 says that Paul:

• went into the synagogue,

• spoke boldly there for three months,

• “reasoning and persuading” about the kingdom of God,

• and only when some became stubborn and publicly spoke evil of the Way did he “withdraw from them and take the disciples with him,”

• then continued reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus for two years so that “all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord.”

 

A few things are very clear from the text:

• Paul did not whisk his disciples into a private bunker where they only ever heard him.

• He did not tell them to cut off family, friends, or other Christians.

• He did not impose a timed “decision month” where their loyalty to his package had to be proven.

 

He moved them out of a hostile public setting where the Way was being slandered, and into another public teaching setting where he kept doing what he always did: reasoning, persuading, explaining.

 

Elsewhere in Acts, Luke actually praises believers who refused to just accept what they were told and instead examined everything against Scripture (the Bereans in Acts 17). Paul’s pattern was to invite testing, not forbid it; to teach openly, not to claim a monopoly on the Word and then demand isolation from any who questioned him.

 

Using Acts 19 to justify cutting people off from long-standing relationships, from Christian voices, and from honest questions is not “following Paul’s example.” It is using Paul’s name to defend something Paul himself never did - just as Wellspring invokes A. W. Tozer’s name while teaching a gospel Tozer regarded as another gospel, which he wrote believers should beware of and separate from.

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From theology to control: why this gospel produces cult behavior

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False gospels do not remain abstract. They generate structures.

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Because Wellspring’s gospel delays full inclusion:

• leaders must decide who is “really in”

• questioning becomes dangerous

• time-pressured “decision moments” are imposed

• relationships are leveraged to enforce conformity

 

This is why doctrine and behavior cannot be separated here.

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When leaders announce: “In about a month, things will be settled,” they are not merely teaching.
 

They are closing conscience, compressing time, and forcing alignment.

 

That is not shepherding. It is coercion.

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The gospel according to Norman James

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Strip away the language of “kingdom,” “narrow way,” and “truth,” and the reality becomes clear:

• This is not the gospel of Paul

• It is not the gospel defended by the Reformers

• It is not the gospel defended by A. W. Tozer

• It is a different gospel created at Wellspring Church by Norman James, rooted in a hidden Oneness theology, and maintained through authority and pressure.

 

This is why former members and outside observers identify Wellspring Church as:

• theologically cultic (because it teaches a different gospel)

• behaviorally cultic (because that false gospel requires control to sustain itself)

 

 

The true Gospel Doesn’t Need Pressure

 

Paul does not describe believers who have Christ but lack His Spirit. He does not make the argument that the Spirit may be “with” a believer while not yet “in” them.

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If you have believed in Christ, Paul says you were sealed with the Spirit when you believed.

• Your standing is not provisional.

• Your faith is not incomplete.

• Your belonging is not subject to institutional approval.

 

A gospel that requires you to submit your conscience to leaders in order to receive what Christ already gives is not the gospel.

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Only one can be true. 

 

The true gospel has stood for two thousand years across time and place, upheld by the Holy Spirit and bearing fruit in every culture and generation - glory to God.

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And the gospel Paul preached does not need to be protected by pressure or coercion.

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It requires defense, but not control.
Witness, not leverage.
Proclamation, not compulsion.

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A Final Appeal: Fear of Men or Trust in Christ?

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If you are deeply honest before God, would you admit that you have submitted to powerful figures because you are afraid? Afraid of losing your social position, your relationships, your reputation, your spiritual standing?

 

Scripture warns about those who fear men more than they fear God. In the final judgment, God will see many who were afraid - who clung to human authority and human systems out of fear, instead of clinging to His Son.

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If you see the apostle Paul in the next life, what do you think he will say about the “gospel of the kingdom” introduced by Norman James in the 1970s?

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If you meet A. W. Tozer in the next life, what do you think he will say about the "gospel of the kingdom" taught by Norman James - a gospel that he consistently opposed, which denies the indwelling work of the Holy Spirit at true faith and places added gates between a believer and the Kingdom?​

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And most importantly, when you see Jesus Christ, where will you be able to say your trust really rested?

• In Him alone - crucified, risen, and sufficient?

• Or in the steps you were taught by Norman James and enforced by his successors?

 

Have you done the will of God in regards to family, friend and neighbor? 

• Have your choices and actions toward sons and daughters, sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers reflected the will of God the Father?

• Have you submitted yourself to God the way Christ Himself submitted to the Father?

• Or will you say that you submitted yourself to the person of Norman James and to those who came after him?

 

These are not abstract questions. They go to the heart of what gospel you have believed, whom you have trusted, and before whom you will finally stand.

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God does not want you to remain in fear. He is calling you to trust Christ, even if powerful people disapprove and reject you. You will not stand before Norman James or his successors on that day. The Christian pilgrim will stand before Jesus Christ Himself - the One who called him, who bore his burden, and who opened the gate before him.

 

You do not need Norman James, his teachings, his successors, or any human system to stand between you and Jesus Christ. 

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Do not be afraid to trust in Christ completely. He is the only Savior, the only gate to the Kingdom, the only Mediator between God and humanity and He is the coming King.

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Fair Use / Copyright Notice

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This article contains quotations, paraphrases, and analysis of a sermon delivered by Christopher Otis, Elder-Pastor of Wellspring Church in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania in February 2026. These excerpts are used under the “fair use” provisions of U.S. copyright law (17 U.S.C. § 107) for the purposes of theological critique, public interest, education, and religious analysis. No audio files or full transcripts are reproduced, and no part of this material is used for commercial gain.​