I was cleaning out my drafts and found this, written 8th December 2013. I feel like it might give some insight to someone currently against it and/or battling it, so I’m keeping it. I’m also keeping it because I feel like it’s not a completely horrible post that was doing me a favor staying in the drafts. c:
Baptism is “a public declaration of faith”. Many pastors and churches will not baptize others privately because of this.
In 2008 I was preparing to be baptized at Fellowship Church simply so that I could volunteer there. Isn’t that contradictory? To have merely wanted to get baptized so I could volunteer at a church and become a “real” member? They required members to be baptized because they’d had a situation in the past where someone committed fraud.
But really, even con artists could get baptized and make it seem genuine, you know?
I found it so odd. I was being pressured to go before 50 or one hundred people and counting since there was the possibility of them using it for a video later on. I felt pressured, because there was no way to avoid going before the audience and making my way outside to be baptized and instead do it privately. Because it’s a “public declaration”, and such should “never be private”.
I was asked questions about wanting to have a private thing — which eventually made me feel like I was being judged.
- Don’t you want to do what the Bible tells you to do?
- Don’t you think you’re being selfish?
- Why wouldn’t you want it public? For all to see?
Really, my answers are in the questions themselves:
- This question is judgmental, which is the exact opposite of what it tells us, no?
- I would rather be comfortable than be in an uncomfortable setting where I wouldn’t normally put myself in.
- Such a personal thing doesn’t need to be public; I’m not putting on a show, and I don’t need everyone else’s approval.
Easter weekend, I went to visit Mimi. The discussion regarding my baptism was brought up (I don’t remember how I brought it up), and she suggested getting baptized there.
I ended up doing just that. It was a private thing, in a small town, with no movie cameras or anything that made me feel like I was pressured to go through with it. It was so easy, and because it smaller, it felt more personal. The next time I went back, I received a bible with my name engraved in the bottom right hand corner. And the person still remembers me, and I didn’t feel like I was just another one of the hundreds of people ____ baptized. I wasn’t just another face. Or a name. Or anything that someone did to maybe fill their personal quota in their lifetime. I was a person with a name attached to a face that he would remember (and still remembers). And it was a personal thing I did for myself instead of for a church that wanted me to.
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