Baptizing Children
Sep 12th, 2007 | By art rogers | Category: Church, General ChristianIf a child makes a profession of faith and you are convinced they are sincere, do you baptize them quickly or do you wait?
I have heard arguments for both. My wife’s home church has the tradition of waiting for up to a year to baptize a child. The reasons are that it gives the church, child and family time to be assured the conversion is real and that they are truly pursuing Christ. Obviously, this helps to ensure that they are performing believer’s baptism by immersion rather than practicing pedobaptism of a child that has merely been handed their parents’ faith.
I grew up around the tradition that was apt to dunk a kid as soon as they said “amen” when they repeated the “sinner’s prayer.” Some of my former churches were very insistent that baptism happen almost immediately after a profession of faith.
I have come to some middle ground, of sorts. Whereas I don’t usually wait a year, I am not quick to press children into baptism. I usually spend some time talking with them, asking their parents and teachers to talk with them, in an attempt to make sure they understand what they are doing. Just because you understand putting your faith in Christ, doesn’t mean you understand baptism.
After two decades in Youth Ministry, one of the things that I saw many church kids wrestle with was feeling like they never really understood, but they had been baptized and felt that they were trapped in that decision. To make a subsequent decision for Christ was nto allowed because they had officially “done all of that.” Also, parents often feel embarrassed when their teen wants to make a later profession of faith after they have been baptized as a child. It’s as if they feel like they didn’t do their job in the first place. The big problem is that some of those parents seek to squelch the response in their teens’ life because of the embarrassment that they feel.
There is no question that this is a selfish and immature response, but also a predictable one. It is also largely avoidable by taking the time to make sure the child understands what is happening. It’s not foolproof, of course, but I think it’s a good move.
So, if you wait to baptize a professing child you are convinced has made a commitment to the Lord, are you right or wrong?
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A child and her grandmother came to me and requested that the child be baptized and join the church. I asked the girl why she wanted to be baptized and join the church and she gave me a perfect recitation of the plan of salvation and assured me she had accepted Jesus as her savior. I asked her if she was sure Jesus died for her sins. Then I asked her what a sin was. She had no idea. She had been well coached by her well meaning grandmother on what to say, but she did not understand the meaning of her words. We let her go before the church and tell them she loved Jesus and that some day she would give her life to him. It was a sweet and meaningful spiritual experience, but it did not give her a false sense of spiritual security.
IMO we have far too many church members who made a public profession of thier faith and we took them at their word without ever examining what they understood the words to mean. We make joing the church far too easy. We are afraid of hurting someones feelings by asking tough questions and requiring clear indications of understanding the consequences of their commitments. Maybe we are just too anxious to improve our numbers and the annual reports. We need to do a better job at the front end if we expect better results along the way.
My policy has always been to allow the child (or anyone else) to make their own expression of desire for baptism apart from any pressing at all. I also know of a history of adults who were baptized simply as a matter of course without ever really having a separate decision made. I tell parents that it robs their children of their own dealing with the Holy Spirit if this decision is made in response to pressure from them or from the church. It is not that we do not make known that baptism is a commandment of God – but we make sure not to confuse that with a commandment from us. After a decision is made the elders meet privately with the child (or anyone else) and simply inquire about the dealings of God with them. If we believe they have not really understood what is going on we counsel with them about waiting until they are sure of what God is doing – but we always express our delight at their desire to follow God. It is a fine line that we walk, but having been the recipient of no counseling at all when I was baptized and wrestling with assurance for 30 years has given me a great desire to act with care as well as concern.
Several years ago, I began to ask children of almost all ages this question, “Has there ever been a time in your life when Jesus was not in your heart?” I asked that question based on these assumptions. First, sin separates us from God and the conviction of the Holy Spirit leads us to recognize our need for Christ makes us aware of our separation. Second, I don’t think people call out to God for salvation until they recognize they are lost. I don’t count on a child’s definition of sin, since that can often be head knowledge and not an awareness that they are a sinner. If a child answers that Jesus has always been there, I share the gospel with them and tell them that when they become aware that He is not in their heart, when they realize they need to be forgiven and changed, that right then and there they need to ask for God’s forgiveness, belieing in Jesus to do that very thing.
I’ve baptized my own son twice. I was completely convinced that he was born again the first time. He answered all the questions right. He did it on his own. He was not coerced. Then, this summer I took him to pre-teen camp. He was broken over his sin and said, “I’ve been playing the game. I’ve been pretending. I knew I wasn’t born again.”
I think this whole discussion comes in part as a result of our incoplete teaching of the doctrine of perseverance of the saints. I think that we are so defensive of that doctrine that we’ve failed to preach it in its entirety; that being that a person who is not living for Christ and is producing no spiritual fruit has nothing to assure them that they are saved.
By the way, there is an ongoing discussion of this issue at http://www.sbcimpact.net spurred on by an article about child evangelism.
Good thoughts, all.
Doc – I agree that we make membership too easy and that pursuing that increased number on the ACP is a likely motivator.
Scotty – I have been doing something similar by waiting until they begin to press for baptism themselves. Often times, though, the ones pressing are family or even the church.
Cyle – Good discernment question.
Seems to me the answer to this is tied up in so many things that it’s not likely to every get a “good answer”. The simple step of making sure a child is saved, as Doc did, is a great start, though.
I was saved as a 7 or 8 year old. I didn’t really understand all that went on and luckily, I was in an EUB church and they sprinkled me. That put me in good stead when I got serious about Jesus, in my 20′s, as we attended a Methodist Church, and later several Presbyterian ones too and they were all fine that I’d been sprinkled.
If I’d been in a Baptist church at age 7 or 8, and had been baptized there, I’d probably have asked to be “re-baptized” later to get it in the right order. It wasn’t until years after becoming a Baptist that I realized I’d been saved as a child, and in my 20′s God was sovereignly reeling me in.
I would hope that the continuing discipleship in the church would cause the child who’d been baptized to continually assess his relationship with Jesus and how his baptism fit into that, and make the same sort of decision I did (as to when he was saved).
ps: I don’t think I explained it very well. Phooey.
I thought you did alright.
I remember clearly the events that led to my “dunking” at age 7. It is somewhat embarrassing. The pastor pulled the 2nd grade class out of VBS one night. He took us outside and asked us some questions. We were supposed to have our eyes covered so as to not see what others answered. I knew very little about Jesus. My home was not a Christian one…except in name and on occassional Sunday mornings. I was the kind of kid that didn’t like to get things wrong so (please don’t think less of me… :) ) …I peeked. I raised my hand everytime the girl across from me did. A few weeks later I was getting baptized. I didn’t know why but it must have been important because ALL my family came even my grandma and aunt that lived 4 hours away!
Fast forward to a struggling college kid who finally faces the fact I can’t live right because I don’t know Jesus…saved at 19.
Because of that experience, as a pastor, I am very, VERY non-persuant of children for baptism…maybe too much. Though I have baptized quite a few in the last 3 and a half years. I let them come to me. I let them lead me through the “plan of salvation” while I ask for explanations along the way. I never skim over sin but ask them to tell me some of their sins they feel comfortable sharing. I am still uncomfortable if they are on the younger side. I agonized quite a bit with my oldest daughter and have so far refused to discuss baptism with my second oldest.
On the other hand…as the eunuch said…here is some water, what keeps me from being baptized…NOTHING! He showed no proof, no fruit. My biggest struggle has been two of the adults I baptized. One has denounced Christ after seeming to show a true faith less than three years ago. The other told me later he was faking it to keep his wife from leaving him. This guy was a master actor. Tough, manly-man, country boy, southerner bawling his eyes out and crying out to God…all the while he was an abusive husband manipulating me and the church to keep his wife in place. But that’s another blog for another day.
I don’t push youngins but young or old…how can we ever truly know? Is it our business to decide that? Discipleship is where we falter. Its necessary for the new convert to survive the daily battle and (I believe) it will help with the discovering of those that didn’t truly mean it. –just my opinion–
I have some questions. Do we ask people to wait to obey God in any other way? I mean, would we tell someone to live together without being married? Would we tell someone to wait to forgive? Baptism is, after all, commanded by God. Isn’t it potentially more dangerous to communicate to children that they should wait to obey than it is to possibly baptize someone who is not regenerant? Shouldn’t we be more concerned with teaching that baptism is an act of obedience and a public testimony, and reinforcing the fact that baptism does not save than trying to micro-manage someone’s faith life? How can we disciple someone if at the beginning of their walk with God we tell them to wait to obey Him?
Good point, Cyle, if you are assuming that the child understands and is asking for baptism. Most children and youth that I have led to the Lord don’t ask for baptism.
Every person that I have led to the Lord that started to attend my church, later came to me and asked to be Baptized as a symbol of their growing faith in Christ. When they asked, I jumped on it like a duck on a june bug.
You presume that a step toward Christ is a step toward Baptism simultaneously.
For some, it is. They have been around long enough or are mature enough to understand what baptism is and are immediately ready. I baptize them.
I think it is a bit of a straw man to paint a willingness to discern that we are actually performing Believer’s Baptism and not pedobaptism as micro-managing a child’s faith.