I’ll begin this blog with a little background. I grew up in the Church of England, which still practises infant baptism, often called a christening. To the church, this symbolises welcoming a new child into the family of Christ, committing them to the Lord and as far as I understand, ensuring their salvation. Since my family belongs to the C of E church, I was baptised as a baby. From what my parents have explained themselves, they did this because they wanted to first, commit me to the Lord, and secondly to make a commitment themselves to raise me to follow and know Him. I’ve never really questioned this, I think mostly because I know where I stand with Jesus and adhere to “If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9) so baptism itself didn’t seem all that important to me.
Nevertheless, a few months ago
I got to thinking about baptism, and more specifically, if I should consider full immersion baptism. I was speaking with my squad mentor and she challenged me on what I believe about baptism. Infant baptism is never actually mentioned in the Bible, so did I consider myself baptised, and did I believe in infant baptism as a practise? Since being on the Race I had decided that my way of testing anything would be, is it Biblical or not? If it is, I’m in, and if not, then no. Whilst I do not believe that baptism is what saves us, I started to ponder on what the Bible says about baptism, and it’s call on us as believers to believe and then be baptised. I knew myself that I was completely committed to following Jesus, but I’d never made a public declaration of this.
A couple of months later and I got to thinking about baptism again. I was struggling with jealously that a teammate had got to baptise someone, since that has been a desire of mine on the Race (what could be more beautiful and more of an honour?). Anyway, I knew I’d have to talk to God about it, so I asked Him straight out, “should I first get baptised myself”? And what did He say, well He asked me “what does a leader do?” and I heard myself saying, “a leader leads by example”. If I want to encourage and lead others into baptism, then shouldn’t I demonstrate my own commitment to it? I made the decision then that I would get baptised at the beach the next day.
And so on Saturday 20th May I was baptised in the ocean in Haiti. I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful setting, sunshine glistening on crystal clear blue waters, and a backdrop of the Haitian mountains. It was particularly special that I was able to share the moment with all my teammates and was in fact baptised by two of them. As they prayed for me I felt the Spirit on me, and I arose from the water I was filled with a new sense of confidence and commitment. The Lord has been so good to me during this journey, and I’m proud to declare it to everyone.
If you have any more questions on baptism, why I did it, or if you want to know more about Jesus then please don’t hesitate to get in touch!
