Recently we had a couple of folk baptised at our church. It was a great Sunday evening service and afterwards I got talking to one of the Christian relatives who had come to see his niece baptised.
‘Do you have any baptisms coming up?’ I asked. ‘Yes’, he replied, ‘we are due to baptise 13 people in November’. ‘Wow!’ I thought, ‘13! We hear of ones and twos being converted [we’re talking believer’s baptism here] but 13 is wonderful’. He did explain that it wasn’t quite so dramatic as might first appear because, for building reasons, they had not been able to hold baptisms for the earlier part of the year, so this group included a little backlog of candidates. But, nevertheless, it was great to hear of 13 folk coming to faith in one ordinary church.
Older and younger
Eight of those being baptised are from the young people’s group. The church has a policy of not baptising anyone until they are over 16 years old; so all these youngsters are older teenagers. A recent youth camp was crucial in bringing them through. ‘They show every sign of really having put their faith in the Lord’, my friend told me.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …