Stories From The Tank

On Sunday we baptized 121 people at the Summit.  It was a very, very cool day, but days like that always bring questions…

• Why did you do it that way?
• Is that even biblical?
• Seriously?  J.D. preached in swim trunks and a tie?
• Doesn’t the church pay him enough to go to a tanning bed?

After we tried this for the first time last fall, I gave some scriptural rationale in this post.  If you’d like to go a little deeper in figuring out the “how” behind this thing, that’s the place to go.

The biggest thing you should know is that nobody was baptized that wasn’t ready to be.  Everyone met with a counselor, and everyone had to be able to give a clear story of salvation and being impacted by the gospel.  For those who weren’t clear on that point, we either shared the gospel with them (thereby leading them to faith in Christ) or gently asked them to wait until a later date to make the decision.  At this point, we know of two who chose to wait, and we’ll be following up with them.

We’ll also follow up with everyone who was baptized in order to make sure they go through Starting Point, our catch-all process to make sure people get connected.  That targeted follow up begins today.

What’s the other stuff I learned?  I’m glad you asked…

• Just because you’re doing the Lord’s work and baptizing people doesn’t mean he won’t let your bald spot fry in the sun.
• Cute rubber ducky non-slip tread things don’t stick to a fiberglass baptistery.  They will, however, make you slip worse.
• People do not like their baptistery water too cold.
• Neither do they like it too hot.
• We never can get baptistery water juuuuust riiiiiight.
• If you borrow a megaphone, you shouldn’t drop it.
• If you drop it, you should thank the Lord that it bounces and doesn’t break.
• There is no amount of hand sanitizer that will make you feel better about washing wet baptismal clothes and towels in a laundromat.