This past Sunday we baptized three teens during our early worship service. The two young men and one young lady placed their faith in Jesus Christ and have been working with our Youth Minister for the past few weeks preparing for their baptism. Additionally, some younger youth are currently meeting with our Children's Minister preparing for their baptism in a few weeks. These are exciting times in our church!
A few years ago I was coaching a young bivocational pastor. He was serving in his first church. He had no ministerial training, but he had a heart for ministry and a sense of call on his life. During our coaching relationship it was exciting to see him grow in confidence.
In one of our coaching sessions he said that he wanted to talk about baptisms. He would be doing his first baptism as the pastor of his church in a few weeks, and he had some concerns. Their older church building did not have a baptistery so they were going down to a river that flowed through the town. His questions were two-fold. One, he was concerned because the river wasn't very deep so he was going to be fairly far from the bank. He didn't want the ones being baptized to fall wading out to him. His second concern was he was fearful he would drop his Bible in the river, and it was one that had been given to him by someone very special to him.
After we addressed his concerns he expressed how stressed he felt because he wanted this baptism to be special. When I asked why, he said it was the church's first baptism in 50 years!
As I think back on that conversation I am amazed all over again. It doesn't seem possible that a church could go five decades without seeing anyone come to faith in Jesus Christ and following that with baptism. While most don't go 50 years between baptisms, many churches have not baptized anyone in years.
Most denominations report a decrease in baptisms in recent years. Although various reasons are given it certainly isn't because the fields are no longer white unto harvest. Every church in America today sits in the middle of a huge mission field. The problem is that many of those churches are doing nothing to harvest that field.
The Great Commission is the primary task of the church. If we fail to reach people for Christ, it doesn't matter what else we do, we have failed our mission. It's time many churches made evangelistic outreach a priority again. It's time many churches begin once again to proclaim a clear message inviting people to faith in Christ. It's time we begin again praying for the lost in our communities, in our families, and in our churches.
It was exciting to see those young people last week follow the Lord in baptism. But, I want to see our worship services begin every week with a baptism! Just think how exciting that would be!
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