« Japanese Mountains: Mt. Yamato Katsuragi | メイン | ペンテコステ礼拝 »
2007年05月27日
The Church In Japan: A Spring Baptism
Today was a special day on two counts at our church. One, it was Pentecost Sunday and two, we had a baptism. It seems to me that for a church the critical event-the event that must be happening if it is a healthy church-is baptism. Jesus' last command was to go out into all the world and make disciples and baptize them. It was not enough just to make disciples-the disciples had to carry through on their decision to become disciples of Jesus by being baptized. Today, at our church in Sakai, we were able to enjoy such a baptism.
One of the best decisions we ever made as a church was the decision to dig and build our own baptism pool. (see a picture of that event on my wife's blog in this same homepage) Mr. KA took charge of the digging and would not let us stop till we had dug a really deep hole. Then we poured the cement ourselves only to have to get help from a pro later. We then painted it and were ready for business. Kathy from America was the first person to be baptized here. After our first baptism we realized we had not thought about how to get the water out! However, a person in church had come to church in a truck with a pump in the back and he emptied our pool after our first baptism.
Now, more than 50 baptisms later, there is still a special atmosphere at church when someone gets baptized that we just don't have at any other time. One reason of course is that we all get to hear a good testimony of how the person came to believe in Jesus and was led to be baptized. Today we were all blessed by Mrs. A's testimony.
And now I am praying for the next person to be baptized-for the next critical event to happen in our church. PTL
投稿者 bethany : 2007年05月27日 14:28
トラックバック
このエントリーのトラックバックURL:
http://www.bethanyjp.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/110