Napier Baptist

We have 6 people who are going through the waters of baptism at Napier Baptist this Sunday. I'd like to pretend that this happens all the time - "oh, just another 6 this weekend is it!" But it doesn't happen all the time in my experience of ministry so far. So, I'm very excited. We've stopped all normal operations to come together as a church and celebrate these people being baptised this Sunday. I'm in the throws of considering an appropriate message for this baptismal Sunday and read this in Gathering for Worship: Patterns and Prayers for the Community of Disciples: “Baptism is an action instituted by Jesus Christ in which God, the believer and the Christian community are all involved. In baptism new believers confess faith and share what God has already done in their lives. Here, there is also a ‘letting go’ in which new Christians abandon themselves to the grace of God and the resurrection power of the one who overcomes the chaos of death and sets our feet on the new path of life. The waters of baptism are a meeting-place where human trust and the life giving acts of God come together.
In baptism the Church celebrates the gospel of salvation through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the life-giving, new-world-creating power of the Holy Spirit. The local church is again invited to follow Jesus Christ, and is reminded that life in the Spirit, from which all true fellowship and mission flows, is an immersion into the life of the triune God and a patterning after the likeness of Christ.
In baptism, God meets us and calls us to obedience and self-offering, as the forgiveness and grace of God are given tangible form. Here, the believer is incorporated into the Church, the body of Christ. Here, God commissions us for service and witness, and promises us the presence of the Holy Spirit – a promise made explicit by the laying on of hands.”

I thought it was quite a good outline of baptism for Baptists.