The last session of the January Bible Study was cut short by our quarterly business meeting at First Baptist Church. I had just a few minutes at the end of the meeting to try to summarize Paul’s letter to the Galatians, and didn’t get a chance to ask the question I had been wanting to ask. [...]
Archive for the ‘Baptism and Membership’ Category
What I Learned from the January Bible Study
Posted in Baptism and Membership, Church on February 4, 2011 | 2 Comments »
157 yes, 6 no
Posted in Baptism and Membership, Church, tagged against, carried, Church, convictions, for, motion, no, vote, yes on September 22, 2010 | 27 Comments »
When I was a pastor in Wingate, NC, we took a vote on building a new fellowship hall. Our old hall was a 40 X 40 foot room, and the new program we had started on Wednesday nights was bringing in well over a hundred people for supper. There just wasn’t room for them all. [...]
The Motion Carries
Posted in Baptism and Membership, Church, tagged baptism, deacons, First Baptist Church, Jim Somerville, members, membership, Richmond, vote on September 20, 2010 | 5 Comments »
On Sunday, September 19, the members of Richmond’s First Baptist Church voted to change their membership policy to allow committed Christians from other denominations to become full members of the church without having to be re-baptized. The meeting took place during the Sunday school hour. One amendment (requiring believer’s baptism but not immersion) was considered but not [...]
Like Water Out of a Tub
Posted in Baptism and Membership, tagged accept, baptism, Baptist, Baptists, baptize, Christian, Church, discipling, Episcopalian, immerse, immersion, membership, reject on September 17, 2010 | 20 Comments »
Recent comments on my blog and conversations in the church hallway have convinced me that there is another line of reasoning in our current debate about baptism and membership, one that I haven’t fully understood. As these people have explained to me (gently, patiently) our membership requirement doesn’t imply that people from other denominations are not [...]
“I just can’t accept infant baptism”
Posted in Baptism and Membership, tagged baptism, baptizing, belief, Christian, Church, faith, formation, grace, infant, membership, process, re-baptizing, salvation on September 14, 2010 | 16 Comments »
That’s what people often tell me after they’ve heard all my arguments for welcoming Christians from other denominations into our membership without re-baptizing them. To them baptism is believer’s baptism by immersion, and therefore infant baptism is no baptism at all since it isn’t (usually) by immersion and since an infant is incapable of making a profession [...]
