We’ve recently had some baptisms at Good News Church, and we’ve got a few more coming up. In light of this, we figured this might be a good time to tell you a little bit about how and why we do baptism the way we do.
Let me begin by quoting one of the times Jesus addressed baptism:
Let me begin by quoting one of the times Jesus addressed baptism:
“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.” ~ Matt. 28:19-20a
This is one of the final things Jesus said before his ascension. And it tips us off to multiple things about baptism:
- Baptism is important. Jesus said to do it.
- Jesus said to baptize “them”, which is a pronoun referring to the word “disciples” in the clause just before. (This is the reason that Good News Church baptizes people after they’ve become followers of Jesus rather than before.)
- It seems that the people Jesus told to do the “baptizing” are the same people He told to do the “disciple-making” and also the same people He told to do the “teaching them to observe everything I’ve commanded.” (This is the reason that Good News Church does not limit baptizing to ordained pastors alone. It seems to us that any “disciple-maker” can and should baptize a person they have led to the Lord.)
Now, a word on infant and small child baptisms. We realize that some denominations choose to baptize little kids, and we respect them, and recognize their right to do that. However, we understand the Scripture to only teach on the baptism of professing believers. Because of this, we never baptize infants (who cannot profess faith in Christ) and we are very careful about how we handle the baptisms of children. Here’s the recommendation from our baptism policy (which is available on our website):
While it’s true that 5-year olds can profess faith in Jesus Christ by parroting back what their parents told them to say, we think it’s wise to wait until a child is older to ensure that they are professing a faith that is truly theirs. Technically, we’ve never officially decided on a minimum age for this. However, we think that encouraging parents to wait until the professing child has reached the age of twelve is good advice.
If after reading this you’d like to be baptized, or would like even more information, please fill out this form.
