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Monday, June 26, 2006
So, as most of you who read this know, I was in on the ground floor of a church that started up near where I live... now mind you I was 300 miles away when it started, but I was involved a long time before that. When we moved back, after lots of prayer and visiting other churches, we felt like God was leading us to continue our ministry in this church. To give you a vision of the background this church has, it is about to celebrate it's 1 year anniversary. One year ago, we started this church in a storefront that one of the new members had as a Mary Kay facility. In a few weeks, the church moved to the local City Hall, and then on to it's current facility in a former machine shop located in an Industrial Park. As you can imagine, lots of hours of work has gone into this place... a stage was built, Accoustic curtains placed on the wall for decoration and to help soften the effects of the concrete floors and steel beams, a sound system installed, rooms built for youth and kids ministries, and the list goes on.
One thing that had thus far been overlooked was a baptistry... some place for the new converts to carry out the obedient act of being baptized.
Hmm... problem. There really isn't a way to install a baptistry. We could go to the nearby lake, but getting everyone there and relying on the weather this time of year would be a big downside. Pastor Jeff, in his infinite wisdom decides we need a pool. Off to Wal-Mart I go. We begin the process of filling this 3,000 gallon monster IN THE BUILDING (Remember, old warehouse sized machine shop..) about 11:00 on Saturday... we filled and we filled... for 5 hours... and it's just now a little over half full. We can't possibly get this filled and do everything else by Sunday, but the good news is something has come up and we can't do the baptisim on Sunday. So, this week in the evenings I will go over and add water until I can't take the running water anymore and i'll shut it off to try again later.
The funny news is that there is now a picture of my brother and I (To say we look alike would be a vast understatement) in the pool, up to our knees in water trying to get the wrinkles out of the bottom of the pool. That picture will surely go down in church history, and in 10 years, i'm sure that will end up on the big screen in the sanctuary.
The point of all this is that probably by now some of you have thought.. "a wal-mart swimming pool... in the church building... full of water... and you are going to actually use it for baptism?" The answer is yes... Jesus never asked us to go be dunked in the river, not to be sure we have a nice fiberglass pool with a water warmer. (We did simulate a breeze by putting it under the A/C Vent LOL!) What is required of us is found in Acts 2:38 Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call."
We all stil get so caught up in how things look, or if we will be accepted, when in reality we should be more worried about if we will be found acceptable to Christ through our obedience.
See ya on the big screen in about 10 years!
