An excellent new book on church leadership has just come out called Like a Shepherd Lead Us: Guidance for the Gentle Art of Pastoring. It contains seven essays written by four Highland members — Jeff Childers, Randy Harris, Mark Love, and David Wray — and by Randy Lowry, Rubel Shelly, and Greg Stevenson.
Each chapter is strong, but I want to spotlight two.
First, Jeff Childers’ essay “Moving to the Rhythmns of Christian Life: Baptism for Children Raised in the Church” is worth the price of the book. He faces the difficulty of applying texts that referred originally to conversion out of complete ungodliness to our situation where children come from second-, third-, and fourth-generation Christian families.
Anyone else every felt a bit weird singing “years I spent in vanity and pride, caring not my Lord was crucified”? I’m sure that was meaningful to the author of the hymn, but it doesn’t really describe my journey. I’ve failed plenty. But I didn’t have years of not caring that Jesus was crucified.
It’s the same challenge with finding language to describe the baptism of our children. How do we apply lost/saved, darkness/light texts to a situation where immersion is more of a marker on a journey than a dramatic, sudden turning around?
Here’s a taste of Jeff’s chapter:
“Preaching that emphasizes the importance of conversion is appropriate–perhaps more so than ever given the post-Christian society in which we find ourselves. However, I must admit that I feel uncomfortable trying to convince my eleven-year-old son that he must give up his reprobate life of sin. After all, he has been raised by Christians in a Christian environment, and has been practicing the ways of Jesus for years. Even in two or three years I doubt — indeed, I dearly hope — that there will be no need to persuade him to forsake debauched habits, confess the depths of depravity, and turn from hardened ways of shameful living. Yet this is precisely the sort of assumption that seems to guide the way we handle baptism for children raised in the church, as if baptism ought to mark their radical repentance and conversion just as it does for people long steeped in sin. Because of our revivalistic traditions of crisis conversion we typically feel the need to create for our children a crisis conversion experience. We stage youth rallies or encampments and bring in speakers especially skilled at stirring up adolescent emotions. The aim is to get youngsters to repent and convert in a heartfelt way. In such a climate, it takes only one or two conversions to start a trend; soon, they fall like dominoes, swelling the number of camp baptisms to a respectable level.
“I realize that all people become sinners and need forgiveness. But to treat children preparing for baptism as if the only way to get ready is by owning up to their sinfulness is to ignore a basic truth: that different people come to baptism in different ways.”
The other chapter I want to spotlight is Greg Stevenson’s “The Church Goes to the Movies: Standing at the Intersection of the Church and Popular Culture.”
I think Greg is going to be a helpful guide to many of us through his new blog. (Check it out!)
Here’s a sample of the balance you’ll find in this chapter (and, I’m guessing in future blog posts):
“Unfortunately, we Christians have become so suspicious of Hollywood as a rule that we have largely chosen to opt out of this conversation. We prefer to complain and point fingers at the people who are out there in the culture generating spiritual discussion instead of choosing to add our voice to that conversation. If the church is to communicate its relevance in a media-saturated culture, it must adopt a more balanced attitude toward television and film. The church certainly cannot ignore what is bad or immoral, but it should also be willing to embrace what is good and even to recognize that good and bad frequently coexist within the same film or show. The church should be willing and able to become a part of the cultural conversation, not in a finger-pointing way, but in a way that engages people in honest and constructive dialogue over what they see and watch.”
When I taught the 5th and 6th grades Sunday School class, I struggled with that issue so much. They obviously loved God and wanted to do the right thing. They had been taught to turn from the life they’d been living… which was a great life! We discussed it together and I’m sure I learned more than they did.
Last night I was involved in an intense discussion with members of many other denominations. It was obvious to me that we read the same scripture and yet came to many different conclusions. Yet some of them would say there is only one conclusion and their’s was the correct one. There is so much more to baptism than turning away from sin and getting wet. My children, being raised very much as Christians, will likely be baptized because they love God and he said to do it. I was baptized because I needed to leave a certain life style and gain salvation. Both our baptisms will be valid, in my opinion.
Sounds like a great additoin for my Must Read list.
I have prayed, studied, served, etc. with the baptisms of at least 6 children from our congregation in recent months - including my own 12-year old son. So, Jeff’s writing resonates strongly with me.
I think in regard to children and baptism or teens and baptism that we can take a lesson from our Jewish friends in Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah.
Under Jewish Law, children are not obligated to observe the commandments, although they are encouraged to do so as much as possible to learn the obligations they will have as adults. At the age of 13 (12 for girls), children become obligated to observe the commandments. The bar mitzvah ceremony formally marks the assumption of that obligation, along with the corresponding right to take part in leading religious services, to count in a minyan (the minimum number of people needed to perform certain parts of religious services), to form binding contracts, to testify before religious courts and to marry.
We might also learn from some of our friends in the religious community. Although the witness of Scripture appears to be primarily the baptism of adult believers, we do have evidence that households were baptized at the same time. At the very least the early church seems to follow more in the steps of their Jewish predecessors in bringing children up in the context of belief (For example, Timothy–2 Timothy 1:5) and then encouraging a time of “confirmation” which allows a child becoming an adult to choose on her own to continue in following Jesus.
Of course since the first movement of believers met in house churches, this process would have been much more natural than the artificial environments we sometimes create in our church buildings. With our girls my wife and I have worked hard to help them develop a healthy faith outside of that traditional church building religious model that is attached to a deep sense of God’s presence in our family.
Peace.
I just have to comment that Greg clearly gets this foundation from his solid central Illinois roots. Go Greg!!
Thank you mike and jeff for bringing this discussion about second generation baptism to the church. I cannot tell you what it does to me when a young “member” of the church is baptized and as he or she comes out of the waters the “man” turns to the congregation and says; this is your new family. Who were they before and what does that tell those who are not yet “12” years of age? This is a long overdue conversation.
Thanks for bringing up a topic that is often swept under the rug. Indeed, when it comes to our children’s conversion, we in the CofC have often forced a “quick fry” conversion template onto what is actually is a “slow roast.” Our emotionally charged mega-youth rallies and camps have only exacerbated the situation.
The early church was much more measured and systematic when it came to the children of believers. I personally believe that infant baptism occurred very early in the life of the church–perhaps even in the Apostolic era–and is a valid mode of induction into God’s family (to be followed by confirmation at later age). However, I respect our tradition of “believer baptism” and complete immersion and affirm its advantages.
Regardless of whether children were baptized shortly after birth or at a later age (as Tertullian preferred) the early church never viewed the children of believers as reprobate sinners in need of an Acts 2:38-style conversion. Instead, they (along with catechumens who were not the children of believers) were considered to be “under instruction” and “saved” through the “baptism of intent” until such time that they were either actually baptized or confirmed.
We would do well to adopt this style with our own children, viewing, as you say, baptism as a “marker” in the journey. We have essentially combined baptism and confirmation into one moment in time. Nothing wrong with that, per se, but it seems silly to teach children to sing “Jesus Loves Me” but at the same time try to convince them that they are “sinners in the hands of an angry God.”
In all cases, imho, baptism is about Jesus! He asks us to be His disciples, iow, to love Him and follow Him. He then, will take care of clearing out our sins, whatever they may be.
I feel our fellowship has deemphasized being so in love with Jesus that we come to the point we just HAVE to be His disciples and has overemphasized what the water does to and for us.
When we teach Jesus, and Him crucified to the point our kids just want to hug Him, baptism is a natural happening, imho.
As far as Hollywood is concerned, we really do have a habit of disconnecting ourselves so completely from the world and its culture that we have little or no encounter with those that need Jesus. Imho, we spend an inordinate amount of time “preaching to the choir,” rather than ‘going.’
Some of what this points out is how difficult it is when churches try to take the lead on something God has not called them to do. Parents are supposed to be instructing their children, and churches are supposed to support parents in that. Parents have nearly 3,000 hours each year with their kids. They can customize the instruction to suit where their child is. Churches have only 40 hours with those kids each year and have to settle for more of a “one-size-fits-all” approach.
As a director of a senior high session at a Christian camp, I can really relate to the comments made by Jeff. One of the issues I deal with every year at our camp session is “re-baptism.” I have teens who, after hearing a soul stirring lesson, will come to me and want to be rebaptized. Almost all of them have been “raised in the church” and want to be baptized again, as they say, “for the right reason.” Often they were baptized somewhere between the ages of 8-12. They believe that since their baptism at an early age they haven’t lived like they should and because of sinful behavior they need to be baptized again. I usually tell them, “I was baptized when I was 10 years old. Was I a bad person? No. Did I understand all of the deep, theological implications of baptism? No. But I knew I wanted to go to heaven and I wanted Jesus to be my Savior and I knew He was the only way. That’s all I needed to know. You don’t need to be re-baptized. You simply need to repent.” I appreciate Jeff’s words and I certainly need to buy the book.
I was raised in the C of C and remember that there were times during my teen years in which I actually envied people who had not grown up in the church because they would truely have a conversion experience. This seems to be another area in which “unloigic” is used to explain something that does not quite ring true and so we shoehorn in reasons or sweep them under the rug and hope no one notices.
My fiancee was baptised a couple of weeks ago after being raised Nazarene. The congregation she attended did not emphasis baptism so she never did it. I had a hard time after the baptism with all of the people congratulating her on turning her life to Jesus and making the choice to follow God. She had already been doing that her whole life.
On behalf of camps, not all put kids in the pressure cooker. It is a standard portion of our staff orientation where I am involved to make it clear that is not why we are there.
Interestingly a couple of years ago our theme was on Grace and we had more public responses than we could remember.
I have been in church from the time I was wrapped in swaddling clothes, and baptized when I was 10. Now, my 9 year-old daughter is following in my footsteps. Her baptism will be just like mine … not a dramatic turning in life, but a quiet step of faithful understanding. My daughter, even before she enters the baptistry, believes Jesus to be her Savior. After she is baptised, she will remember getting “married” to Jesus in fron of her friends and family.
But this has been a struggle for 2 years — my daughter wanting to be baptized because she equates the act with living for Christ, and me saying “no no no” because of her age. And the whole inability to participate in the Lord’s Supper, because she’s not a baptized believer, even though is very much a believer.
This kind of frustration with baptismal language. rights, privileges, and age appropriateness is one of a number of reasons I left the coC about a year ago. I now advocate baptism using wonderful, imagery language of love, instead of dogmatic five-step salvation brow-beating. And I look forward to the continual challenge of unraveling the mystery of baptism within the context of God’s gracious gift of Christ’s blood. I also look forward to leading my daughter to the water very soon.
Brian
Our church practises infant baptism, with the parents taking an integral role in the months leading up to this celebration of life, and committing to be spiritual guardians.
Until the children are confirmed at a later age, they are not left out of the act of communion with their church family, as I was growing up in the C of C. I remember we children were not allowed to be members of the body of Christ until we were immersed in baptism for the remission of our sins. This was honed into me weekly in nearly every instance when the plate of matzos and Welch’s grape juice were circumvented around me. When I was too young to be baptised it seemed to me I could never be perfect enough.
So it is with delight now that I see children go up to the altar with their parents and the rest of us during the Eucharist to receive a blessing on their sweet heads from the hands of our priest (or pastor, etc.). They are lovingly affirmed and assured of their belonging.
Mike, thank you for your blog! I was referred here by Kristin Organ, who is obviously a big fan of yours. I really appreciate your posts on the Bible, and I look forward to reading more. I’m also looking forward to your class this weekend.
Thanks,
Todd
My children (ages 4 & 6) share in Communion together with us. We view this as a family event & they are a part of the family. I think churches need to think about how they are (mostly NOT on purpose) excluding others instead of including them & find ways to instill change.
Like a shepherd lead us… Oh, how I ache for that kind of loving leadership and mentoring from elders! If you have that… be thankful and love those guys!
When I was first baptized (yep, I’m one of THOSE!), I was really young… and the primary motivation was that the church “scared the Hell out of me!” Now… I know that God can work with even that. I don’t think “it didn’t take” or anything like that. But after that time, no one even explained what the Lord’s Supper was to me! When I finally started to grow in Chirst (uh… some 10 years later!), I wanted to experience baptism as (obedience is a given) a vow to God, showing Him that I understand the life He’s calling me to and that’s a covenant I want to keep with all my heart… It was powerful and beautiful!
So, yeah… I’m interested in this book! I sure would’ve rather avoided the earlier scenario!
RE HOLLYWOOD: The church certainly cannot ignore what is bad or immoral, but it should also be willing to embrace what is good and even to recognize that good and bad frequently coexist within the same film or show.
AMEN! I think this definitely applies to music too! Here’s a link to a post I just made about that:
http://www.angiesaim.squarespace.com/journal/2006/3/20/songs.html
OK… gotta go buy a book!
In all seriousness - how old was Jesus when he was baptized? Was he saved before John immersed him?
Mike, thanks for the heads-up on the book. Those kind of issues are the ones that we all have been questioning for a long time in the cofc. Stepheson is a great resource for all things “Christ and Culture”. I just read a great article by Frederica Mathewes-Green called Loving the Storm-Drenched in Xianity Today which is along the same lines it seems as Greg’s chapter:
link: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/003/10.36.html
The concept of turning from a reprobate life as a symbol of baptism was actually a stumbling block for my very astute, very pragmatic 17 y.o. daughter. She said “I have always lived my life in a Christian way and being baptised will not change that.” Before spending a semester in Africa,helping a missionary family, however, she did submit to immersion (her choice). I had never thought much about this issue–would love to hear more aobut it–Juli
How much do you have to get before you are baptised? I am still gettting some of this stuff..
I am sure those 3000, spoken of in Acts, probably didn’t get it..they “accepted the message.”
I remember my dad not understanding why I wanted to get baptized at age nine. “But… you haven’t really sinned,” he said. But I what if I waited until I did sin, and then tripped walking down the aisle and impaled myself on one of those little golf pencils the Bible says we’re supposed to fill out the membership cards with? Or what if the water is too cold and I die of hypothermia during the speech about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit? Just dunk me, get it over with so I can get into the safe zone.
When our daughter was six, she wanted to get baptized. I asked her if she knew what it meant to get baptized and she said, “It’s when you decide to follow Chwist.” No fear of going to hell involved for her. I’m glad… and a little envious.
Oh — and our daughter’s in speech therapy, but isn’t the way she talks so darn cute?
Mike, could you mention the publisher or a web site where the book could be ordered? I couldn’t find it on Amazon. (I wanted to add it to my wish list.) Thanks.
I grew up in the church of Christ. My dad was the preacher. All I knew was living the Christian life. But even though I never lived as a reprobate, when I was twelve, I began to realize that even my “little sins” were separating me from God. At 13 I finally decided to do something about that separation. That’s what we need to be teaching our children. It’s not about repenting from horrible sins but that even the tiniest of sins in our eyes separates us from God. Sin is sin - whether it be the white lie of a 12 year old raised in the church or the drug addiction of an 18 year old who never heard of Christ. The result is the same. I also think it’s about commitment and responsibility as well. We let kids who are 8, 9, and 10 years old make the most important decision of their lives - a life a commitment and responsibility but we would never think of letting them stay home by themselves or cut their own meat because they are too young. In my mind, if a kid still believes in Santa Claus, how can they mentally mature enough to make the decision to put on Christ?
Okay, Deana, you made me laugh..that is hilarious!
Web site and phone number for the book is here:
http://leafwood.notlong.com
Thanks, Steve. I had written Leonard Allen to tell him I couldn’t find it on Amazon, either. I presume it’ll be there soon. But it is available through the site Steve gave. Juli, I’ll try to write more about this later. And TCS, I’ve VERY thankful for those camps and youth rallies that don’t pressure kids to make sudden decisions. I know there are some that understand the journey metaphor better than others.
Maybe we can find middle ground by baptizing for the remission of Santa.
I remember one time pushing Angie into a baptistry! I don’t think that one meant anything, but it sure was funny!
Grant , your off the list!
Thanks so much, Mike, for bringing up these two topics. Especially the one on children’s baptisms. As my three kids were growing up I had to deal with that issue with each of them more than once because at very young ages, they were made to feel guilty by some of their Sunday school teachers for not having yet been baptized. And we’re talking about kids 8, 9 & 10 years old. Not older teens.
For example - my youngest, Mark, when he was 10 was just a perfect kid. I mean - as perfect as they come.
He had no hang-ups about material things in life. He was perfectly happy with faded, worn- out blue jeans with huge ragged holes in the knees and old knit shirts. It didn’t matter to him whether his hair was short or long, whether his shoes were new or old. He was totally unaffected by physical surroundings. His internal clock was really on a different schedule and in a different place all the time from most people.
He decided one day that year that he was bored with life at the moment, so he said, “I think I’ll just go on to heaven and wait for you there - I’m bored.”
It told him, “Look, kid, you aren’t going to get out of fifth grade that easy. You’ll just have to stick it out with the rest of us.” Besides, I needed the company of such a one.
He read his Bible a lot and had his own personal theology all worked out. It was fascinating and amazing to listen to how his mind worked.
He was studying and thinking about Christianity and came to me one day saying, “Well, I think I’m nearly ready to be baptized - I just don’t understand guilt well enough.”
So I said, “Well, what is it that you don’t understand?”
And, he said, with much consternation, “Well, - I just don’t feel guilty.”
I consoled him, saying, “You really don’t have anything to feel guilty about, you know. You are a good boy and obedient son.”
He quickly replied, “I didn’t set the table just when you asked me.” I reassured him that it didn’t qualify for the unpardonable sin and anyone with his attitude was O.K.
He was baptized a couple of years later and still remembers to this day - at 35 - why he was baptized and who the young man was who taught his group who was so influential in causing him to do so. It MEANT something to him. Very much so. He knew what he was doing and he hadn’t known when he was 10.
But he WAS very much a loving, obedient son. He still is, in every way. In his early adult years he went through some very difficult times and was led “astray” as we say, for a while, but I prayed for him every day during that time that God would protect him until he “could come to his senses,” and God did.
And Mark repented and has lived a deeply spiritual life ever since, just as he had as a child and before that brief time.
Oh how we mistreat and emotionally abuse our children sometimes in churches. And oh how wrong and terrible it is.
Mike - you have done us all a great service today by talking about this very important subject. Thank you is not enough to say. God bless you for your encouragement and dialogue.
I’m a little confused as to why we have the duality of “Hardened Sinner->Baptism->Saint” and “Good life->Baptism->Good life”. Neither of these seem to be realistic - as if baptism is either a cure for sin or a badge making a Godly life official.
I haven’t seen baptism function as either one of these. I too, was raised in the church all my life and was a pretty good Christian kid. I was baptized in my teens, mainly because it was time to do so. But I in no way see that as the validation of a life that was already good before God. It was a first step in a long journey of making my faith my own and turning everything over to the control of God.
We need to be careful about over-validating the lives we lead, both before and after baptism. Baptism is the step that consciously says “God, no matter what kind of life I have led, I amount to nothing through it and I am desperate and totally dependent on you.” We then go into the grave and arise with Christ owning a life that is still broken, but a soul that is reborn into a spiritual kingdom. If baptism does not signal this powerful transition, then we have made it irrelevant.
\ My Life->Baptism->God’s Life
Great discussion. Count on Jeff to hit the nail on the head (again). Many of the things we do as disciples of Christ mean different things to us as we mature. Baptism, giving, fellowship, singing, prayer, communion, almost everything we do. Having grown up in the Church of Christ, I went through all the same things people are discussing. I don’t agree with all of those pat answers any more, BUT, I am where I am because I am on the journey. All those “rules” were part of that journey, a necessary part, at least for me. I don’t want to be a “Church of Christ doctrine” basher any more than I want to complain about having to be a baby or child or adolescent. It’s part of the journey, part of my history, part of how Jesus has broken my heart and made me face love and the resulting grace right in the eyes. Everyone won’t have all the same trails or trials that I have had, even though we travel in the same direction. Where I want to go with baptism and especially communion is a function of that journey. I think it is to be treasured and shared with our children, not withheld from them.
That being said, I must say that baptism is unimaginably more precious and complex to me now than it was when I was dunked in 1969. Communion is even more so. There is just cause, in my opinion, to assume children (immersed or not) SHOULD be involved in the Lord’a Supper just as they were involved in the Passover meal from which communion arose. It shows them they are involved in their own journey with the Passover Lamb. Can we really admit that communion is involved in eternal life (as Jesus said in John), that it makes us one (as Jesus prayed for and Paul described), that it involves the (new) Blood of the Covenant, that it is a critical part of our Spiritual and physical health and strength (as Paul taught the Corinthians), then withhold it from our children?????
That doesn’t make sense to me anymore, but I have to respect those who don’t agree with me. My journey has not been perfect, not by a long shot. But I’m here under God’s grace BY God’s grace, anyway. I hope that’s where He will lead us all, regardless of our differences with each other and with our pasts.
Sorry about the long post, Mike. I gues you struck a tender spot. C.
I’m for connecting with culture. We have built a wall around ourselves for too long. But I have some sincere questions about what is being called for in regard to Hollywood and believers trying to connect through it somehow.
For one thing, Hollywood and what comes out of it does not represent our culture. It is, for the most part, fantasy. It is not based on the reality of most people in our culture, and relates even less for the rest of the world. What is it that’s coming out of Hollywood are we talking about?
Second, someone needs to explain how watching movies somehow connects me? What kind of dialogue is it supposed to create? I’ve heard believers just gush praise over the movie Crash, saying it was one of the best movies of the year. Not only did it contain graphic sex, but it was rated as the oscar nominee with the highest count of foul language. Now if I’m missing something, please help me, but what part of watching that movie honors Christ? I don’t think I need to watch people having sex to somehow connect with my culture. I don’t think I need to hear the f-bomb being dropped dozens of times to somehow get in touch with those I am trying to bring to Christ. Must I embrace a movie with such content to create dialogue? What would that dialogue look like? Could I have the same dialogue and not have to subject myself to the filth, even though there might be some good in it?
It seems to me if we want to connect to culture, go down to your local high school and hang out with those kids. That’s real life. Go to a bar and sit down next to a drunk and strike up a conversation about how his life has been ruined by addiction. Hang out with some homeless people and see the emptiness in their eyes. That’s real. Hang out with those who are overextended in their finances. Go to a hospital and look disease in the eye. Befriend a prostitute on crack. Go to a nursing home. Adopt a heroin baby. Help a single mom. Drive a shift with a local police officer. That’s reality.
I guess what I’m saying is, let’s let Hollywood do what they do best, entertain. They help us escape the real world for several hours. That’s why I like to go to the movies. But as believers, let’s seek cultural relevance in something that looks more like reality, the lives of the people around us everyday. It seems that’s what Jesus did.