Wade in the water, wade in the water children. Wade in the water, God’s going to trouble the water. Well it’s Labor Day and this marks the start of school and the end of summer activities. Which also means that churches that are going to hold outdoor Baptism have reached the end of being able to do so for this year.
After all there’s no better way to end the summer then to go down to the river for a good old fashioned outdoor Baptism. Which if truth be told is a lot more exciting than the indoor ones done during the rest of the year. This is because normally even if your church normally does Baptism by sprinkling when it takes place at the river it will normally be done by immersion .
Personally I was Baptized during outdoor Baptism back in 2004. Except it was done outside in a turned off hot tub. This was done mainly because the church was next to the Zumbro River in a place where the current was way too strong to safely hold a Baptism in. Great part to go tubing in not so much for safely dunking people in and out of the water.
My father is a pastor, who currently works for two little Methodists churches out in western Minnesota. Now the thing to know about my Belize pastor father is that while he might work for the Methodist he's an acuity Southern Baptist. Which is one of the denominations that baptize by immersion.
One of his churchs held an outdoor Baptism by the river the weekend before Labor Day this year. Their plan was to go out into the river, which water levels have been pretty low this year, and sprinkle just like they would do inside of the church building except while standing in the river. Practical but unexpecting right?
Which is what it would have been if anyone else except maybe my father had been the one doing all of this. Because the day of, he changed the plan and decided that he was going to baptize everyone who was getting baptized that day by immersion in the low creek levels.
My mother sent me a video about an hour after my father, wearing his fishing wader under his robe, lowered a parishioner into the water, bringing them back up and then both of them immediately falling back into the water. Which made the whole thing a lot more executing then the original plan.
Luckily for my father, I know him, and remind my mother to send him with a spare change of clothing. Because I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that baptism at the river would result in something existing enough to need a dry change of every.
