Hello, James!

Baptism is a personal ritual one must choose for themselves and while it is a formal commitment to Christ and God it is not necessary for one to confess their belief and submission to God or to get into Heaven.  I've never been baptized since my parents do not believe infant baptism is in accordance with the meaning of the ritual.  After all, an infant cannot choose for himself.  It is something I've thought about, but never had time to go to the classes.

Kate

Jim,

Baptism is probably the one thing that varies enormously from Church to Church.

The C of E (as with many mainstream protestant religeons) practices infant baptism, something that, since being aware that that act had been done for me as a baby, never sat well with me.

I never had my children baptised as I felt that it had to be a matter for them but as they followed that particular church they elected to be baptised there anyway later in life.

Immersion for one who has come to that point in their faith is a wonderfully cleansing act as it is an outward sign to your church, yourself and to God. It puts into action an act repeated since that day in the river Jordan when Our Dear Lord himself made that declaration to the world.

I pray that all of those who are coming close to making that decision do so now in the full knowledge that it acts as a defining moment in their lives by accepting the power of the Spirit and its power to transform.

Roger 

Hi Geketa, and welcome! Thank you for sharing this experience. Baptism is definitely symolism in that when we go down in the water, it is, in the same sense burying our sins as Christ did on the cross and then when we come back up again, our sins have been left in the watery grave, and we come up with new life as in the resurrection of Christ. See Colossians 2:12

Hi Kate, you hit the nail on the head! I was baptized when I was thirteen, and at the time I believed I was doing the right thing.