Well, it did not start too well. There were a couple of technical difficulties and it took us until after 6pm to get the tank filled with water. This is for a church service that started at 3pm.
Well, we had a time of worship then I went to help fix the tank. Eventually my wife and the church came over to the church building we were meeting in. We got a few pizzas and some Indian take away and had supper together. Finally the tank was nearly full. We baptised our (eldest) son first.
I asked him the following three questions:
Do you believe that Jesus Christ was fully God and fully human, that He died on the cross bearing your sins so you could be righteous, and rose again on the third day?
Have you repented of your sins and put your faith in this same Jesus?
Can you confess out loud to everyone witnessing that Jesus is Lord?
A lovely lady then gave a prophetic word to our son, and another wonderful lady gave him a Scripture.
Then we baptised Poonam – who last year was a Hindu! – and asked her the same questions. My son stayed in the pool with me and helped me baptise her. It was wonderful. The presence of God in the room was overwhelming. She was then given a Scripture.
The Lord showed me something wonderful – part of a baptism is to embed into our memory that we have died with Christ and we are living a new life with Him (Romans 6.2-3) – if during the baptism service we have to wait around for hours, buy pizza and Indian, baptise people in a few inches of water, and all the parephenalia associated with the day – then all that does is serve to bind it into someone’s memory. The devil can’t even disrupt the day, because every disruption is simply an aid to memory!
Glory and freedom,
Benjamin
Tree of Life Blog 