Posted on 07/25/2007 7:20:45 PM PDT by Ottofire
Here’s a list of some simple things we do that almost any church can do:
1. Mention the value, purpose and benefits of baptism regularly in sermons.
2. Videotape some of your baptisms. Prepare a music video of baptisms to show in your worship service so people who’ve never seen a baptism can witness one.
3. Have clothes ready for people who decide spontaneously to be baptized after a service.
4. Make it a party atmosphere. It’s a celebration, not a funeral. Applaud baptisms!
5. Invite small group members to witness the baptism and identify them before each baptism.
6. Prepare a beautiful leatherette-bound baptism folder to hold their certificate.
7. Have a required membership class that explains the meaning or baptism in detail.
8. Always baptize on special days when relatives may be in town – Christmas, Mother’s Day, New Year’s Eve, etc.
9. Always baptize on special days of the church. (We baptized over 400 on the day we opened our Worship Center.)
10. Allow entire families (after confirming that all are believers) to enter the pool together.
11. Hug each person after they have been baptized!
12. Interview all candidates at the water’s edge to hear their story of how Jesus changed them.
13. Build a Baptism Team of volunteers who assist with all baptisms. Have matching shirts to identify the Baptism Team and the pastors leading the service.
14. Have a professional photographer there to capture the moment and include a picture of their baptism along with their certificate of baptism.
15. Print a “Why Be Baptized?” brochure. Use scriptures and lots of testimonies.
16. Put the brochure information, baptism pictures, and even videos of baptisms on your website, so people can forward it to others.
17. Have pre-printed invitations for the baptism candidates to use in inviting lost friends and relatives to a service and to witness their baptism.
18. Make the baptism pool and surrounding area beautiful and inviting and non-threatening. (Many baptisms are perched up so high inside the church that it feels distant and disconnected. Our baptism pool is outside in our patio area so people can gather up close around it for a more intimate feeling.)
19. After the baptism service encourage people to go out afterwards for coffee or dessert to celebrate and find out what the experience meant to the person baptized and to the family and friends who watched it.
20. Publicize the baptisms with posters around your church. Elicit “one line” testimonies from people who have been baptized, take an 8×10 photo of that person, and mount their photo and quote on a 2’x3’ foam board sign. Put this on a tri-pod in a visible area after the service where people can sign-up to be baptized.
21. Have all small groups get people in their group to sign up in the group for the next baptism.
22. Identify and celebrate other special moments at the water’s edge (birthdays, anniversaries, spiritual birthdays, etc.)
23. Train your Baptism Team volunteers to greet and make everyone comfortable.
24. Provide a sound system that will allow spectators gathered to hear the testimonies.
25. Always have the baptism pool warm and chlorinated before services.
26. Have a corporate prayer of celebration at the end of each service to thank God for those baptized.
27. Sing a great chorus or hymn about the power of God to change someone’s life.
28. During warmer weather offer baptisms at the beach or lake or slow-flow river.
29. Develop a “Baptism Party in a Box” kit that includes ideas for a family party following baptism.
30. Have outdoor heaters if you baptize outdoors in the winter.
31. Set up good lighting if you baptize outside after evening services.
32. Have hand towels available as a gift with the church’s logo as a memory keeper.
33. Ask each small group in your church to take a week where each person shares their baptism experience and what it did for their Christian life.
34. Use banners and signs the week prior to baptisms to draw interest, especially beach or lake baptisms.
35. Build a baptism service into an extended spiritual growth campaign (like Saddleback’s Millennium Member Campaign). Build on momentum.
36. Constantly emphasize baptism as the next step after committing your life to Christ. Have sign-ups everywhere.
37. Give a follow-up booklet, a button, and a free gift for those who obey Christ’s command to be baptized.
38. Have a special Christian’s baptism class as a requirement for baptizing children. Insist that at least one parent attend with their child.
39. When baptizing grade school children, have the baptizing pastor hold their hands lifted high after they come out of the water, like you would with a winner in game.
40. Address Frequently Asked Questions in a brochure they can walk away with, and deal personally with every fear or hang-up about baptism.
Do these 40 things and the number of people wanting to publicly demonstrate their faith through baptism will rise dramatically. Rick _________________ Pastor Rick Warren, Saddleback Church
While sin no longer holds power over us, we're still prone to sin and we do sin, which is what I believe you meant to say.
Can you give your biblical basis for saying that the life of a believer is suuposed to be FUN? we're free from sin now,
Are you saying that believers cannot get entangled by sin?No! That is not true, the bible teaches quite the opposite. We are NOT free from sin now. Not yet. That comes when we are with Him. But we are free from the power of sin in our lives when we abide in Him and walk in His way. When we don't, when we fall prey to sin. If we are free from sin, how do you explain Romans 7:14-25, much less 1 John 1:6-9:
If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.
we have all things that pertain to life and godliness,
Yes, we do. In Christ. But we must abide in Him to avail ourselves of that. Abiding in an action verb, it is something me must be doing. If we are not abiding in Him, if we are not standing firm in Him, then sin will overcome us until such time as we rest in Him. It sounds as if you are confusing justification with sanctification. Big difference!
No wonder I'm so joyful- I'm in Tampa, right next door. Certainly couldn't be because of my salvation, nope.
While sin no longer holds power over us, we're still prone to sin and we do sin, which is what I believe you meant to say.
I meant to say what I said. We are free from the law of sin and death. Sure we sin, but so what. If we confess it, we're cleansed. Beats the alternative!
As for the rest of this conversation, we're saying exactly the same thing, just from different points of view. I choose to enjoy my warfare and my assignment. You don't. If you prefer to be baptized in lemon juice, good for you. I'll take new wine.
What's really underlying this whole thing, this whole thread, is the tendency for some Pharisees to find fault with someone who's making a difference and being productive in the Kingdom. It's disgusting and reprehensible. No wonder people dont' cruise the religion threads more often, if this is the type of crap they're going to be exposed to? Why don't you reserve your little judgmental attitudes for yourself and satan? You'll be improved, and he will be toast. You aren't making any difference in the world by criticizing a fellow servant. Criticize yourself.
*sigh* We don't have to sin. It holds no power over us. If we sin, it's because we willfully do it, not because it's part of our nature. We are a new creation, living out of a supernatural covenant.
Read my previous post to see how I really feel about this entirely ridiculous conversation.
“41. Install a giant water slide leading into the olympic size baptismal pool.
42. Change the name of Baptism to something like Dunking for Jesus.”
ROTFLOL—Some of the stuff on the list was bordering on the silly. LOL
Actually, Catholics have been doing most of the (non-silly) items on the list for a long, long time. Most parishes do their baptisms en masse the Saturday night before Easter Sunday (Easter Vigil). These masses are the most moving and joyful ones of all. What’s wonderful is the rest of the (already baptized) parish gets to renew their baptismal vows along with the catechumens:
Priest: Do you renounce Satan?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do renounce him.
Priest: And all of his works?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do renounce him.
Priest: And all his pomps?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do renounce him.
Priest: Do you believe in God the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do believe.
Priest: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord, Who was born and Who suffered?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do believe.
Priest: Do you believe in the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do believe.
It is so wonderful to renew one’s baptismal vows every year! God bless.
The conversation is not ridiculous because the god that is promoted on those 40 steps does not focus anyone's attention on the Almighty God, but rather on man and his ways of trying to please God. Part of our warfare here is to exalt high the name of Christ Jesus and expose false teachings. It is very obvious. I realize that you won't agree.
There is a big difference between emotional happiness and the true joy of the Lord. A big difference. Sometimes the first is the result of the second, but the second is never the result of the first. One is temporal, the other is eternal. One can be videotaped, explained and relayed, but the other (1 Peter 1) is unable to be uttered in words, so high and wonderful that it is. It carries us through the emotional highs and the lowest of life's lows.
Do you really think the average believer is that stupid, or the Holy Spirit that impotent to fail to glorify Christ through such activities? Get a grip. The God I serve isn't that fragile.
Here's a revelation: God doesn't need you self appointed deputies to run around and nitpick your fellow believers who are actually accomplishing something. Why don't you try loving a sinner or a backslider instead, and revealing Jesus to them? There are scores of lost people out there looking for something, and they don't even know what it is. The harvest is ready.
Ahh, but we are, we are. Warren does not preach the Jesus of scripture. Believers don't accomplish anything - it is the Holy Spirit who does the work. Yes, He can draw people to Him even though the words of false prophets point to man. It is His work, not ours. We are just instruments to exalt His name and not that of man's works. But I know you won't agree with that either. However, I will leave you alone before you continue to name call and other things.
I Cor.3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. 3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
Rom 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
Consider yourself marked.
Priest: Do you renounce Satan?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do renounce him.
Priest: And all of his works?
Sponsor/Catechumen: I do renounce him.
******************
That’s how mine went - just like that Corleone kid. I don’t think as many people got shot during mine, though.
I'm delighted you're making a difference. You must be very proud.
1. Tell people they have to be babtized or else they’re going to go to hell.
Yeah, people LOVE to come to church when they ‘git’ something. That’s why Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday are so popular. Also a good selling point for weekly communion.
Maybe I'm making a difference. That's up to the ones who hear it.
Thanks. I have been called worse, but you get a few points. You would have gotten more if you hadn’t made been so fleshly. ;)
lol I couldn’t help it! ;)
oops.. make that “if you hadn’t been so fleshly”
Got a Bible verse for that?
ideas like...
Those who sow in tears shall reap with joyful shouting.
Die to yourself, deny yourself,Take up your cross and follow me
The world will hate you because it hated Jesus first.
In this world you shall have tribulation.
Sounds fun!
Father-priest 2: Is there one aspect of the faith that you find particularly attractive?
George: (he thinks) I think the hats. The hat conveys that solemn religious look you want in a faith. Very pious.
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