Salvation is intensely personal, but God never planned for our salvation to be private. Everything in the Bible, Old Testament and New Testament, bears witness to the corporate life of God's children; this is by God's eternal design and purpose. “New birth” places a person automatically into a spiritual family with other believers. Here, in a local church, they are to be nourished, fed, protected, and guided toward spiritual maturity. Just as a child, when born into a physical family, has family,