Hi all! I know I've been gone for a bit now, but I do still lurk at you all when I can. :lol: Just wanted to share a pic with you. Tanner got baptised this last Sunday at our church. He was SUPER excited. He wrote out a little testimony and everything about how he got 'saved', which was read before he got 'dunked' (we do full body submersion baptism at our church). Just wanted to share our joy with all of you. Here is he with his white robe on before he got dunked. I don't have pictures of him actually getting baptised because I video taped that portion. ETA: The video of it is below.
Oh my he looks so grown up! Please tell him I am so very happy for him. I would have loved to have heard his testimony. I know you are so proud of him. In my daughter in law's church they do the sweetest thing. When someone is baptised they do it in a creek and an older man stands on the creek bank and as they come up out of the water he takes their hand and says, "welcome home" to each person being baptised to welcome them into the family of God. Please tell Tanner I said, "welcome home" especially for him tonight. Beth
Kris, if you click on it, it will take you to where the video is and you can watch it. AWESOME!!! (Jen, Phillip was watching it over my shoulder; I'm hoping it gave him ideas, lol! He's ready to be baptized, but I want it to be HIS idea, not us telling him to!)
I got it to work and I am sitting here wiping the tears. It was beautiful. Thank you for sharing it with us. Beth
What a blessing. We were supposed to do that last weekend too...but everyone had strep throat so we are scheduled for THIS Sunday. I had been discussing it with Jazz and Dutch listening in said he wanted to get baptized also. I hadn't even thought of him. oops. So they went to counseling and the pastors thought they were ready so here we go. If we can just rebuke the devourer enough to make it to church. God bless!
Jackie, I don't know if this will help or not, but this is what we did with Tanner. One day Tanner was asking Troy about being saved. We had always known Tanner had a belief in Christ, but he had never really questioned and solidified it before until this day. He asked Troy about it and Troy told him what he had to do to be saved. He explained to him, and Tanner said he wanted to be saved and live with Jesus forever after he died. They prayed together (which is a praise in and of itself because Troy is never the pray out loud type). About a week later we heard about our church's baptismal service. I approached Tanner and told him what baptism was about and that after you except Christ, God likes us to be baptised. I told him it was HIS choice, and that he didn't have to yet if he felt he wasn't ready. I explained it was not a 'gate into heaven', but was meerly something God calls us to do and is a symbol to show others you have excepted Christ (much like how a married person wears a wedding band...we get baptised to show others how we excepted Christ...that's the example one of our pastor's used). I told him when he was ready, he could do it. So, I planted the seed, because he hadn't really known anything about baptism before and wanted to at least give him the chance since the baptismal service was coming around. BUT, I wanted to make sure he knew exactly what it was about and that it was HIS choice when HE felt he was ready. I didn't put on any pressure, but at least presented it to him so he knew he could if he wanted. I don't know if you have had a talk with Phillip like that, but for us it really helped explain why we do it (assuming you believe the same thing...I don't mean to assume). I also picked out scripture to back up why God calls us to do it, and scripture of others being baptised, which I think also helped. In the end, he said that if God wants him to, then he wants to.
Phillip accepted the Lord when he was about four. We were sitting at the kitchen table one day when somehow it came up in conversation. Carl just asked Phillip straight out if he wanted to do that, and Phillip said yes, so Carl prayed with him. About a month later, again just through conversation, something came up about asking Jesus into your heart. It might have been something said in a Devotional. But Phillip picked up on it and commented, "I did that at dinner!" So I know that the decision he made had special meaning to him. (With little kids you never know. Faythe went forward at a kids' meeting once. I told her she would have to tell Daddy what she did. Her response: "What did I do?") He's seen baptisms at our church; we do them a little differently. Instead of having a Baptismal way up where only the pastor and the person are (like you have with Tanner), we have this portable one we bring right out and have people gather around. Lots of cheering and pictures. People watching actually get wet as water splashes out, lol! Part of that is due to the unique nature of our congregation...many of them are homeless or VERY poor. I'm just waiting for HIM to bring it up. Rachael was baptized in a lake; I've got a Scrapbook Page of it. Faythe I don't feel is "ready" yet, and I think she'll feel left out if her LITTLE brother does it, but I'll deal with that when I have to!
Your church sounds very cool Jackie! I love tight-knit churches where the congregation celebrates and cheers people on, and makes you feel like family. That's how ours feels too, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
