It Takes a Church

From It Takes a Church to Baptize.

Perhaps then you are like me. I grew up Baptist and have been baptistic in my view of baptism for most of my life. That is, to be baptistic is to believe only believers should be baptized by full immersion into a pool of water and that baptizing infants by sprinkling or pouring is wrong. Strange as it may seem, reading the Bible led me on a long and winding road to embrace infant baptism as the view most consistent with the Bible. Many have gone before me on this path, and perhaps you are wondering if this is the path for you. This book, I hope, approaches this topic in the spirit of civility as it offers a biblical case for infant baptism surrounded by both family and church. I write this book for you and your children and for our church. Infant baptism is the first public step in nurturing our children into the faith.

You might even be surprised by that statement. You may have heard, as I did as a child, that liberal churches baptized infants and look at their numbers – their churches are dwindling annually. You may have heard that children who grow up with baptism behind them have not genuinely experienced their baptism, and you have may have heard that infant baptism automatically places a child in the church and that child then never has to respond to the gospel. Every one of those concerns is of value to me because I held each one of them and changed my mind. It Takes a Church to Baptize will provide reasons from the Bible for infant baptism. So if you are doubtful or wondering, I invite you to reconsider infant baptism for its power to nurture your children into the faith.