Baptisms at Soul Survivor

This year Soul Survivor took the bold step to throw a baptism party at the festival for people who decided to follow Jesus. No doubt they will be criticized for it, but I think it's right. Baptism was never intended to be an inner-church ritual, it's a simple act of obedience. More pictures here.

Comments

[Yevgeny]

Great pictures! It is a joy to see the people who decided to follow Jesus. I agree that baptism does not have to be an indoor ritual.

[Mark]

Marc, you wrote that baptism was never intended to be an inner-church "ritual." I agree, but I wonder if it's an inner-festival "ritual" as well.

When I consider the command Jesus has given us in Matthew 28:19-20,

1. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,
2. baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
3. and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

I think that baptism is part of a bigger scheme. It's part of helping others to start and keep on following Jesus His way.

So I would argue that baptism should be a integral part of the disciple-making movement you belong to. In others words, shouldn't we just baptise people who are part of the group with whom we follow after Jesus?

[Marc]

Yes, I can go with that argument to some extent. Two notes though:

1. In the practice of John, Jesus and the early church baptism was clearly linked to the point of conversion, letting go of your old life, and start following Christ. Every year, a lot of young people make that commitment in the setting of this festival. Therefore I would say the festival is the right place to baptise people, even if their faith journey continues in another local context. When people from all over the region came to Jesus, he didn't say: Go back to your own town and get baptized there.

2. The irony is that more young people are being discipled on this festival than in local churches. Much of the teaching given and modelled on the festival is not being taught properly in local churches. For many young people SoSu is their 'disciple-making movement' as you call it.

[Mark]

Good first point and well put. I do like a bit of irony ("Go back and...") to get your point across.

However, I still wonder about your second statement about people being discipled at a festival. Maybe I'm just nitpicking here, but isn't discipling more of ongoing process than of a moment (what I consider a festival to be)? So to stay in the context of Matthew 28:19-20, in my opinion a festival contributes to "make disciples and baptizing them," but can make only a start with "teaching them to obey everything Jesus commanded."

In either case, it still leaves me with the question that if local churches fail to disciple young people, how can you then expect them "to continue their faith journey in another local context" as you put it?

[Marc]

Yes, I agree with you that discipling ideally is an ongoing process. But then again: do you know many local churches who intentionally disciple young people in the sense of 'teaching them to obey *everything* Jesus commanded'? Personal discipleschip is not the same as running a youth program. Most churchese raise young people to fill pews, not to bring the Kingdom. Don't want to sound harsh here, but this has been my experience in working with local churches over the past 20 years. I find a movement like SoSu truly refreshing because they take young people much more serious than most local churches. Having said this, you are right that also SoSu has limitations in discipling people in an ongoing way (although there are some segments of the work that are taking place throughout the year).

With the 'continuing their faith journey in another local context' I meant the reality that young people don't stick at the festival, but go back to their own community. Basically I'm trying to say that the act of baptism is too important to postpone.

[Mark]

Hi Marc,

Thank you for taking the time to talk in a bit more detail about the link between baptism and discipling. I find it a refreshing discussion. It seems to me that we from different angles arrive at similar conclusions. I would like to continue our discussion a little longer, if you don't mind.

To answer your question "Do you know many local churches who intentionally disciple young people in the sense of 'teaching them to obey *everything* Jesus commanded'?" Well, no. We are/used to be youth group leaders ourselves (we're kind of in a transition right now) and we tried but never really achieved to personally disciple the boys and girls in our youth group. The two main reasons being a very diverse group (which all asked for a different approach which we did not seem able to combine) and giving way to the pressure of keeping the youth program running (instead of listening to God and keeping our options open).

Also, I'm not so sure I even know (let alone obey) everything Jesus commanded and how is one "to bring the Kingdom?"

Then one last remark. You state that the act of baptism is too important to postpone. I intend to agree, but having thought about it I can't seem to articulate very well why. I see the examples in the NT, but why the "rush"?

[Marc]

Hi Mark,

What you describe is the typical youth leaders dilemma. The only way to overcome this is to challenge those young people with a sense of calling and/or latent leadership potential to become part of a personal discipleship group in which they will be taken seriously, receive a personal investment by you, and where they have to take responsibility for their own spiritual development.

You could meet twice a month with that group (combined with one-on-one coaching), and let them lead a small group composed of the others every other week, so they learn to multiply what they receive. You could also still do some of the social events (meals, weekend, etc.), but let the young people organize it themselves, so you can focus on the disciple-making process.

The funny (or sad) thing is that I had some good experience with this type of discipleship in my student years, but when I wanted to apply it in our local church, the elders backed off. I told them I only would only consider the youth leader's job if I could intentionally disciple the potential leaders, and train them to start and multiply small groups. But they preferred to maintain the status quo, and asked someone else to run the program.

About the doing *everything* Jesus commanded: I don't mean this in a legalistic sense, but as a basic commitment to obedience based on the revelation we have of who Jesus is and what following Him means in our given context. Basically what I'm trying to say is that most churches teach people to fill pews and follow church programs, while Jesus simply taught his disciples to obey and do what they saw Him doing. They were trained for apostolic ministry, out of the box, which is bringing Jesus and His Kingdom to places where this has not yet come. Most churches maintain the show instead, and if they raise up leaders, it's for positions in the church instead of pioneering new things outside the church.

I'm not saying that baptism should be rushed in the sense that the decision becomes superficial. Only that baptism is linked to the point of conversion, the decision to follow Jesus as Saviour and Lord of our life. Then there's no reason to wait till the next baptism service. In fact that would set a bad example, implying that you can postpone obedience.

Hope this helps. Question to you: do you see real space to disciple young people in the church you're part of? Could it work the way I suggested, or would your leaders react in the same way as the elders in my church?

[Phil Miglioratti]

A part of the answer is whether the church (congregation) or the Church (entire Body of Christ) is responsible for discipling . . .

[Mark]

Hi Marc,

It took me some time to free the time to continue our conversation. First, let me thank you for your ideas/suggestions.

However, as I wrote earlier we ourselves are kind of in a transition right now - with respect to how to give substance to following Jesus ourselves and as to being an example for young people how to follow Him. The youth group we used to lead has basically dissolved and the ones who "survived" have moved on to the next group lead by others. So we are not in a position to really "try out" your suggestion. We do connect with some of them, but not with the group as a whole. So we just try to strenghten the relationships we have and try to go from there.

In the mean time, a few teenagers who "out of the blue" want to get to know Jesus better have found us and we try to be a small group together (outside the church, while still being a part of the church ourselves) in which we help them to really get to know Him and themselves better and as a result start following Him more and more.

Not to be judgemental, but most of the teenagers in our church really find it difficult to take responsibility for their own spiritual development. They are so used to everything being taken care of that they don't see the need to do so. Giving the opportunity to be responsible for some parts of the programs in the past, they all more or less declined or accepted and then forgot and/or relied heavily on the existing youth leaders to fill the gaps. To my surprise, it is actually the teenagers themselves who prefer to maintain the status quo. When asked what they would like to do, the general answer was "chat and chew, do something serious and again chat and chew." This is so far removed from training them to start and multiply small groups that we just did not know how to turn this around.

It would be interesting, though, to see how the leaders in our church would react to the idea of starting and multipling small groups. We have enjoyed a lot of freedom in our church how to do things (both youth group and youth services) and they are all for taking responsibility, but I expect they would like to keep the small groups connected with the church. Not to fill pews and follow church programs, but to keep the community both strong and healthy.

[Marc]

Hi Mark, good to hear from you. I recognize what you say about teenagers who never were taught how to take responsibility. What does that say about the level of (or lack of) discipleship, radicality and entrepreneurship in Christian families, churches, and the (secular) school system? Somehow we have to break this unhealthy cycle. As said, it's best to ignore the maintenance attitude of the majority and focus on those few who want to be serious about following Christ. And it's great if small groups are connected to a strong and healthy community (if that is indeed the case).