Who Is Permitted?

[T-Bone]

Who in your church is permitted or should be permitted to baptize others? 

 

[subllibrm]

Any of the elders may.

The senior pastor does most of them.

The youth pastor does the teens if they request such.

Fathers (if baptized believers themselves) of children are encouraged to participate/assist.

 

[T-Bone]

How about small group leaders?

 

[subllibrm]

How about small group leaders?

I don't know. We haven't been doing it long enough for that to come up yet.

At first blush, I would suspect that the senior pastor would/could invite the group leader (assuming that they had some direct involvement in the person's conversion or decision for baptism) to assist/participate. There has been precedent set for that prior to our small group model.

So on second blush, I would hope that they will be involved in some fashion. 

 

[T-Bone]

Without fear of the wrath of certain parties here.  In our church I baptize, Youth Pastor, Deacons, Christian fathers and mothers assist in the baptism of their children, & small group leaders who lead people to Christ. BTW...for those who care we have Sunday School & small groups, Sunday evening services (only church in the whole community that does)

 

[subllibrm]

Technically: ANYone can baptize a believer and it is still a legitimate baptism.

I agree but wouldn't it be good to put in the qualifier that the dunker be a believer?

On the other hand wouldn't it be a cool testimony to ask a close unbelieving friend to bury me and bring me back? 

 

[bgwilkinson]

Technically: ANYone can baptize a believer and it is still a legitimate baptism.

Typically the Catholic and the Anglican Churches would have a real problem with anyone baptizing other than a religious professional who had taken holy orders from the Bishop. As long as a Believer priest does the baptizing I believe it would be legitimate. IMHO

However Baptists have carried a lot of Catholicism into their assemblies following the traditions of man rather than the Bible. Man of God-ism in particular.

Many Baptists have followed the Anglian Church in the use of the Authorized State Church Bible. It would be logical that they would also follow the Anglicans in other areas less important than the very version of the Bible they use to decide all matters of faith and practice, or so they say.

 

[rsc2a]

Catholics and Anglicans both accept any triune baptism as valid and would consider re-baptism to be doctrinally problematic at best.

 

[Ransom]

Who in your church is permitted or should be permitted to baptize others?

I've never been to a baptism service where one of the pastors didn't do the baptisms. The church by-laws don't specfiically say so about baptism, but in the same section they do require that communion be administered by a pastor, or "any other person" authorized by the board in the absence of one. I assume the rule is probably the same: as an ordinance, it's nominally a pastoral function, though exceptions can be accommodated.

I'm fine with that: the ordinances are public functions, and except under unusual circumstances, should be administered under the oversight of the pastors. Especially so with baptism, since (unlike communion) there's no constitutional requirement that baptism services be held with a particular frequency, there's no reason we can't wait for a pastor to be available. Too, there's also a need for a competent saint to examine candidates to ensure a credible confession of faith, and that task generally falls to either the pastors or lay elders.

 

[Ransom]

Technically: ANYone can baptize a believer and it is still a legitimate baptism.

However, that particular fact only came to light thanks to an actual crisis, the Donatist controversy.  I'm sure it was reassuring to thousands of Christians to know that their baptisms weren't invalidated because someone appointed an apostate bishop generations earlier. However, just because a given baptism passes on a technicality, doesn't mean we should deliberately exploit the technicality.

 

[rsc2a]

As an aside,  my eldest has been asking to be baptized for a couple weeks.  I have taken him for breakfast to ask him why he wants this and discussed it with both him and his mother. 

I am now in the process of having several conversations with him about things like the Apostle's creed (which he knows),  the importance of faith, personal sacrifice,  and the necessity to love others well.

I have already notified our group that we will need to move our "kitchen table" (for those that snark) to a local park in a few weeks and I'll invite the grandparents so they can all be a witness as I baptize him.

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

Leave it to man to screw up dunking someone in water. 

 

[subllibrm]

Leave it to man to screw up dunking someone in water. 

Got a big sink in your church Mater? 

 

[The Rogue Tomato]

Leave it to man to screw up dunking someone in water. 

Got a big sink in your church Mater? 

Seriously, my wife was baptized in the assembly we attended before we moved.  I'm not even sure what the container was.  It was plastic, a little bigger than a kiddie pool, and it was outside on the grass.  They only dragged it out and filled it for baptisms.

 

[bgwilkinson]

With the approval of church elders in our previous church, I baptized several ladies I had been discipling.  My husband baptized a husband, and that newly-baptized husband baptized his wife.  In our current church, the Children's Ministry leader (female) baptizes her age group, as does the middle and high school pastors (male).  A believer may baptize their own family members if they request to do so.  Our baptistry is large enough that entire families are baptized while in the water together.  I've seen parents of handicapped children go under the water with their child to assist the one baptizing them.  I've seen a woman help her husband who had serious back problems assist the one baptizing him by supporting his upper body as he went down and came up. 

I'd post some videos, but the music in the background might offend some weaker brothers here.

It's all good.

Priesthood of the Believer in action would drive any high church type to drink.

Just sounds like a bunch of Baptists practicing their convinced Baptist Faith.

 

[Citadel of Truth]

Who in your church is permitted or should be permitted to baptize others?

It is not a "who" that is authorized to baptize. God gave the ordinance of baptism to the local church. Each local church has the authority to determine which of it's membership will be afforded the privilege of baptizing.