Baptisms

So baptisms then. Last Sunday there were five of them. I am thinking this is going to be a massive achievement to do five in a morning and I was really worried they would not manage to do it. However I was wrong and more than happy to be so as they succeeded in it.

The first thing to say is I have seen a baptism once before from the back of a very crowded church so I am not sure at this point what to expect. These were much more simple to see and watch. So anyway everything was relatively normal initially apart from the lack of a cup of tea, but we made up for that at the end of the session :).

We started as normal and sung 2 or 3 songs which is always good. I am currently trying to remember all the upbeat songs we are singing on a sunday so I can learn them on my guitar which I spend a good couple of hours a day practising with.

After that each of the people who were going to be baptised came up the microphone and told their story of how they got to where they are today and how they are going to progress in the future and how they wanted to give their life to God. Now me I am a trainer/consultant who can spend an entire week stood in front of an audience, cracking really bad jokes, laughing around at the same time as teaching a really serious subject and apparently I am quite good at it. I still haven't worked out why but that is a totally separate topic so I'll come back. There is no way I could ever stand in front of all those people and do what those five people did. The whole thing quite honestly terrified me. I am just truly in awe at all five of them for managing to stand there in front of over 100 people and do that. Too scary for me by far..

Anyway they all said their bit and we had a short talk from one of the church leaders which was good about the baptism and what was going to happen. We then went into another room where each in turn was baptised by being fully submerged in water and then their new life being "born". It was a really happy occasion amongst the church and I did get asked would I do that? I have to confess my answer was no and it was nothing to do with the water.

It was good to see and it showed me how far I really am from accepting the whole thing into my life. I guess I have a long way to go and an awful lot of questions to get answered yet. That led me onto thinking what are the questions that I have outstanding. I have been thinking about this on and off for a few days and I think I have run out of questions for the time being. I am wondering whether that at the moment is because I am still a little nervous from a couple of weeks ago. It is most curious not to have any questions that I need an answer to. Maybe that is telling me something in its own right, but I have no idea at all what it is telling me. It would be far too easy if it was telling me.