Posted on 10/30/2005 5:51:37 PM PST by aculeus
A US pastor performing a baptism was electrocuted inside his Texas church when he grabbed a microphone while partially submerged, a church employee said.
The Reverend Kyle Lake, 33, was standing in water up to his shoulder in a baptismal in front of 800 people at University Baptist Church when he was electrocuted yesterday, said Jamie Dudley, a church business administrator.
Doctors in the congregation unsuccessfully performed chest compressions for 40 minutes, Dudley said.
The woman Lake was baptising was not injured, Dudley said.
Pastors at University Baptist Church routinely use a microphone during baptisms, Dudley said.
"He was grabbing the microphone so everyone could hear," Dudley said.
"It's the only way you can be loud enough."
About 800 people attended the morning service, which was larger than normal because it was homecoming weekend at nearby Baylor University, Dudley said.
Lake, who had a wife and three children, had been at the church for nine years, the last seven as pastor, Dudley said.
AP
While looking for their web site, I did see a listing for the church which showed it with a contemporary service.
You are absolutely right; he was performing a sacred right...
...not giving a performance.
Lose the microphone, and speak up; either the crowd will, in their solemn silence, hear; if not, then they also mistake it for a social event.
What is next, spot lights? Stage lighting?
No, God does not appreciate being mocked.
There really is a University Baptist Church in Waco and there are many references to Kyle Lake being a pastor there. One of the most interesting is a 1998 article about "post-modern fundamentalists" in the uber-left propaganda rag Mother Jones. It has this to say about Pastor Lake:
In Waco, after Seay's sermon, Kyle Lake, a University Baptist pastor, leads an orientation meeting for prospective new members. He talks about how during the Enlightenment, God was held suspect because he was invisible, then continues on to discuss Descartes, science and reason, and the failings of "progress." "Mankind," he concludes, "has gone to hell."
Kyle Lake was apparently the author of several books, btw, including Understanding Prayer: A fresh approach to conversation with God.
There's no microphone near my church's baptismal font.
"A Republican will tell you that you shouldn't make fun of disabled people, and he's right. A Democrat will tell you that you can't make fun of disabled people - which is untrue, as anyone who's ever heard the joke about Helen Keller falling down a well and breaking three fingers calling for help will tell you." - P.J. O'Rourke
I really care what you have to say, you know?
That was sarcasm, too, you humorless tightass.
I don't see why so many people find the death of a good Christian to be something worth joking about.
how is using a microphone mocking God?
Post 33 - most informative link on musician electrical safety.
This is so tragic. The article said over 800 people in attendance. I'm sure many would have been children. I see nothing "funny" in this at all.
But your pastor doesn't get in the water, does he (or she)? As I recall you are PCUSA, and dunking, while permitted, is exceedingly rare in most Presbyterian churches. Does the preacher use a wireless mike?
Most churches I've seen with a baptismal pool have either had the mike aimed in from the front or dropped from above. That being said, neither arrangement should require the preacher to adjust it. If the signal isn't loud enough, the sound guy should be able to provide sufficient boost.
How big is the room where your services are held? Does your preacher do 3 back to back services (with sermons in excess of 30 minutes). Can he yell loud enough to be heard in an overflow room or two on another floor?
And it's clear that your church doesn't have a tape ministry, or web streaming. Either of those would require a microphone. What is next, spot lights? Stage lighting?
It can help with the quality of the video feed to the overflow room, but I agree with modern equipment, it is not entirely necessary.
Neither did the pastor.
I have to wonder though, who is now more worried about the future, the pastor's flock, or the person being baptized at the moment of the event?
Oh spit. Having a disaster occur at a baptism does not equate to divine displeasure. Someone could give a baptism in the ocean and find the event visited by a man eating shark or lose the celebrant to a rip tide; does that mean God frowned upon that baptism?
I got dunked under similar circumstances. I stepped up to the mike (a larger church lent our little church the use of the baptismal) and gave my testimony of conversion then the pastor said on mike "I now baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Amen." (Sploosh!) If this was show biz, it was DULL show biz. But it along with the others who joined at that occasion was inspiring in a different sense to those who heard.
0.1 amps is all it takes to have a fatal electric accident. The current flowing through the body at 0.1 amps is generally more of concern than the voltage, although if provided sufficient voltage differential, the current maybe implied.
FWIW, we are condemned before we are saved. If the person being baptized, wasn;t to be saved, it's not the physical baptism, but the regeneration of the spirit or baptism by the Holy SPirit that results in salvation. That's for God to discern anyway.
Every sin committed has already been paid for on the Cross. Those who continue to rebel in sin might suffer the sin unto death if they reject his discipline and are simply good for nothingness if they remain by His plan, but most probably this was a simple blunder resulting in manslaughter.
Of course we know that sin has resulted in death and suffering in the world that doesn't care whether the person who dies or suffers was saved or not. An equally possible scenario from our point of view is that, a la Job, Satan asked God for permission to wreak this disaster and for inscrutable reasons God said yes.
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