This Sunday we will be having a Beach Party & Baptism at Honeymoon Island and we'll have several kids from our BayKids classes getting dunked! For me there is nothing cooler than seeing a kid get baptized- I take that back- seeing parents baptize their own kid- now that is as good as it gets!At CATB we ask kids to wait until they are 8 years old before being baptized. I know, its an arbitrary number and some kids make a commitment to Christ at an earlier age- save me the theological lectures. But we believe baptism is important enough to be remembered as the next step of a life-altering commitment and we want kids to be old enough to remember it for the rest of their lives. We also want this to be a conscious choice they have made, not something they do because they are pushed into it. That's why we interview them to be sure they understand what they are doing and why.
This may sound even more heretical but we don't even push kids into making a commitment to Christ. We work very hard at creating an environment where they will hear the message of Christ loud and clear but we want to LEAD them to Christ, not manipulate them into a childish decision that has no roots. In a room full of kids I could get them all to recite a prayer and then declare them all Christ followers but I won't do that. We want to provide the environment where that choice will be a logical and natural result of their understanding of God and His love for them.
So if you are a volunteer with Baykids, every one of you should share in the celebration of each kid that is baptized this weekend. At every age level, you have contributed to the environment that produced that commitment, regardless what age that decision was made. I can't wait until our church is old enough to have kids who started in the nursery and worked their way through preschool and elementary classes and then come to Christ and get baptized. That will be way cool! I hope all of you will come out and see first hand what a huge difference you are making every weekend. And let's celebrate with these kids and let them know what a big deal it is to become a Christ follower!
Check out a Beach Baptism at CATB!
