My disconcerting look at W3W and our church building spooked me even more when I found the three words for the area of our baptistry.
Oath Placed Snap . . .
The first two words amazingly appropriate; the third distinctly worrying!
Showing posts with label Baptism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Baptism. Show all posts
Wednesday, 29 September 2021
Friday, 19 October 2018
Second City Story
It was great to meet Steve in Birmingham this week. We were visiting to publicise NextMeal.co.uk, the web facility for finding free food and more for homeless people in London and beyond. Steve, who works for the Birmingham City Mission, knows a thing or two about such needs, as you'll see in his story:
‘I didn’t
grow up wanting for anything. My family worked in Africa, so a brief part of my
childhood was spent there until we returned to Birmingham. My parents divorced
when I was 14. I did reasonably well at school; I played football and golf to a
fairly high standard and after further education I went on and found a job
within the recruitment industry. Most of my twenties was spent working hard,
playing hard. I was never a bad person but I often made bad decisions. Often
selfish. In 2010 I was offered a job in Australia and whilst this was a
wonderful experience, the work hard, play hard lifestyle continued. I returned
from Australia in 2014 and very quickly entered a downward spiral of
depression.
In January 2015 I made the decision to take my own life. I gave up all my possessions, I gave up my place to live and I purposely lost touch with all my family and friends. Obviously I was unsuccessful in my attempt but I awoke in hospital disappointed that I was still here. Then reality hit me that I was homeless. Embarrassed, ashamed and still depressed with no idea what to do next. The hospital released me into a homeless hostel which was a completely new experience to me. I was living with ex-offenders, people struggling with addiction and others with mental health issues. I very quickly had to adapt to my new surroundings.
The hostel pointed me towards Birmingham City Mission Resource Centre to obtain a food parcel. I remember asking them if they needed any help volunteering and thankfully they said yes. I began working the following week. Out on the van, collecting donations and delivering furniture. It gave me a new sense of purpose and I was surrounded by good people. A year later I went to help collect the Mission’s lighting and audio equipment after a church service. We arrived early so decided to sit at the back and listen to the service and everything clicked into place for me that night. I became a Christian that very evening!
I would like to thank everyone who has helped me in my journey of faith whether through conversations, services, prayer or simply through their actions and it’s an honour to spend every day offering the same in return to others.’
In January 2015 I made the decision to take my own life. I gave up all my possessions, I gave up my place to live and I purposely lost touch with all my family and friends. Obviously I was unsuccessful in my attempt but I awoke in hospital disappointed that I was still here. Then reality hit me that I was homeless. Embarrassed, ashamed and still depressed with no idea what to do next. The hospital released me into a homeless hostel which was a completely new experience to me. I was living with ex-offenders, people struggling with addiction and others with mental health issues. I very quickly had to adapt to my new surroundings.
The hostel pointed me towards Birmingham City Mission Resource Centre to obtain a food parcel. I remember asking them if they needed any help volunteering and thankfully they said yes. I began working the following week. Out on the van, collecting donations and delivering furniture. It gave me a new sense of purpose and I was surrounded by good people. A year later I went to help collect the Mission’s lighting and audio equipment after a church service. We arrived early so decided to sit at the back and listen to the service and everything clicked into place for me that night. I became a Christian that very evening!
I would like to thank everyone who has helped me in my journey of faith whether through conversations, services, prayer or simply through their actions and it’s an honour to spend every day offering the same in return to others.’
Thursday, 26 July 2018
World Cup Blogs 29: Sweden
Sweden put in a, well, Swedish performance in this World Cup. Never incompetent but never exciting. Their performance against England was as unremarkable as the Colombians' was eccentric.
I'm not sure what it is about Sweden that makes it so laid back - after all the Swedish winter presumably requires some determination to get through each year. But laid back they are. All the passion in our local IKEAs comes from the queuing customers from Britain.
When I visited Sweden some years back I did encounter some laid back elements in things spiritual. Yet there were exceptions, and one especially glorious one.
I went to a church that caters for people like me by running parts of the service in English. It included Believer's Baptism and the Pastor asked just one simple question of each candidate. It wasn't, in one sense, the most satisfyingly theological baptismal question, yet a strangely fundamental one,
"Will you follow Jesus all the days of your life, and not turn back?"
Was he young and naive? Hardly - he was a Doctor. In that man I glimpsed the kind of faith that changes churches, communities and countries. This bewildering, to the outsider, commitment to things not seen is commented on in Hebrews chapter 11;
How did they do it? They saw it way off in the distance, waved their greeting, and accepted the fact that they were transients in this world. People who live this way make it plain that they are looking for their true home. If they were homesick for the old country, they could have gone back any time they wanted. But they were after a far better country than that—heaven country. You can see why God is so proud of them, and has a City waiting for them.
Am I, I ask myself, a competent Christian or an of course Christian?
Tuesday, 10 October 2017
Sabbatical Picture No 6 The Baptist Font
Baptists are in short supply in Jerusalem. There is nothing new about that. You may find some near an American Pilgrimage Tour Bus (though there are, to be fair, a handful of Baptist churches in Jerusalem). Baptists might wish to point out that the first Christians in Jerusalem (Acts 2) were practicing Believers' Baptism which basic jewel of Christian truth was recovered largely thanks to our Baptist forefathers in church history.
Commonly Christian visitors to the Holy Land think of being baptised in the River Jordan, where Christ himself was baptised by John. A minor tourist industry engages in indiscriminate baptism there which I would howl at theologically were it not that in one of my churches I discovered that one of the most conservative, dependable and hard-working ladies of the church was baptised there on a pilgrimage and it had been her key spiritual moment (as well as her only baptism).
The picture here is not the River Jordan though. It is in the Anglican Cathedral - St George's - in Jerusalem. Was the Bishop who built this (otherwise very English) cathedral a closet Baptist?
The answer is no. This is a diplomatic baptistry (the icon behind it is a clue). The high Anglican Bishop had it built to indicate his positivity toward the Orthodox Christians in the city and its surrounds. (As most Baptists probably don't know, the Orthodox Church generally practices baptism by immersion, though most commonly (and scarily) to not-yet-believing infants.)
Today the baptistry is used sometimes, though ironically it was built with no real intention that it should be.
Baptist Churches in Britain usually have a baptistry that was built with the intention that it would be used. In last year's submitted statistics (though the strongest churches can't be bothered with such things as a rule) the 2000 churches in the Baptist Union averaged one baptism each. So we have built baptistries that were intended to be used and we don't use them.
Baptist Churches in Britain usually have a baptistry that was built with the intention that it would be used. In last year's submitted statistics (though the strongest churches can't be bothered with such things as a rule) the 2000 churches in the Baptist Union averaged one baptism each. So we have built baptistries that were intended to be used and we don't use them.
Saturday, 19 April 2014
Days to Remember 3: The Baptism of John
Every Baptist Pastor faces a central dilemma when the baptistry is full and ready to use. What if someone has a sudden urge to be baptised? Opinions differ. Some make a virtue of it and encourage the instant response, most baulk at that.
We are about to have a baptism at church, just as we hope to do every Easter.
And that reminds me - one day at the appeal John came forward. He had hardly been to church before and he was of Central/East European extraction. His dialect meant his wishes did not become clear very quickly. He duly failed to get baptised mainly because we only later understood that was what he's intended. Perhaps, we thought, that was just as well as he had no change of clothes. (On the other hand we did have a Church store of clothes for people who need them, albeit rarely after their baptism).
On the day he was baptised the store became useful because he brought a complete change of clothes except one thing: a change of trousers . . . There are several baptising by immersion techniques but none I know that leaves the person's trousers dry.
John's mysteries were many. It was a mystery how he exited a car park by driving through a barrier, something more commonly found in riotous young car thieves than an elderly gentleman. Lest the reader misunderstands, he did stop on hitting the barrier, inspected the inconvenience laying on his car bonnet, and revved up the engine to send it flying. Quite a way to head home from a church service.
We never worked out what country he came from. We never found out any family members he knew. He died after being well cared for in a nice nursing home, but I scarcely knew of any outside visitors he had as it was out in the country. We heard of his death when he was several weeks deceased.
But he followed Jesus. He remains possibly the most enthusiastic baptismal candidate I have ever known, one of the oldest, and certainly the most mysterious. At one point I remember thinking of angels. Every once in a while beings cross my path who are indeed mysterious as to their origins and destination and you just wonder - was that an angel?
Surely an angel would drive a car better though? Angels don't ask for baptism do they? (I suppose their boss did). I think I'll just remember John and smile.
We are about to have a baptism at church, just as we hope to do every Easter.
And that reminds me - one day at the appeal John came forward. He had hardly been to church before and he was of Central/East European extraction. His dialect meant his wishes did not become clear very quickly. He duly failed to get baptised mainly because we only later understood that was what he's intended. Perhaps, we thought, that was just as well as he had no change of clothes. (On the other hand we did have a Church store of clothes for people who need them, albeit rarely after their baptism).
On the day he was baptised the store became useful because he brought a complete change of clothes except one thing: a change of trousers . . . There are several baptising by immersion techniques but none I know that leaves the person's trousers dry.
John's mysteries were many. It was a mystery how he exited a car park by driving through a barrier, something more commonly found in riotous young car thieves than an elderly gentleman. Lest the reader misunderstands, he did stop on hitting the barrier, inspected the inconvenience laying on his car bonnet, and revved up the engine to send it flying. Quite a way to head home from a church service.
We never worked out what country he came from. We never found out any family members he knew. He died after being well cared for in a nice nursing home, but I scarcely knew of any outside visitors he had as it was out in the country. We heard of his death when he was several weeks deceased.
But he followed Jesus. He remains possibly the most enthusiastic baptismal candidate I have ever known, one of the oldest, and certainly the most mysterious. At one point I remember thinking of angels. Every once in a while beings cross my path who are indeed mysterious as to their origins and destination and you just wonder - was that an angel?
Surely an angel would drive a car better though? Angels don't ask for baptism do they? (I suppose their boss did). I think I'll just remember John and smile.
Wednesday, 5 September 2012
The Baptism of Children
I'm not a fan of this because
a) Infants cannot profess repentence and faith
b) Young children express learned phrases and their profession is less secure
c) There are enough things that can go wrong at the front of a church without introducing another one . . . !
a) Infants cannot profess repentence and faith
b) Young children express learned phrases and their profession is less secure
c) There are enough things that can go wrong at the front of a church without introducing another one . . . !
Sunday, 8 January 2012
Sunday, 19 September 2010
New Saints
On the day that the Pope continues the labyrinthine ecclesiastical process of canonisation for John Henry Newman, and in the spirit of my previous post, I offer a somewhat more dynamic and wholly more glorious expression of saint-making.
Simple really.
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