A baptism takes a few minutes. You say out loud that you believe Jesus is the Son of God, and then you’re lowered all the way under the water and lifted back up, usually in a pool called a baptistery. However, we’ve also used a local river or someone’s pool. Location doesn’t matter, but in those few minutes God forgives your sins and the Lord adds you to His church. That part lasts the rest of your life.
Knowing what’s coming makes it easier to say yes.
It Starts With a Conversation
Nobody gets baptized by surprise. You tell one of us you want to be, after worship or in a message through our website. Usually we’ll sit down and open the Bible together first, so you understand what baptism is (being immersed, or completely put under, in water) and why the New Testament ties it to forgiveness. Philip did the same with the official from Ethiopia. Before they ever reached the water, he “told him the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:35).
You won’t pay anything. Nobody votes on whether you can be baptized, and there’s no course to finish before you’re allowed. That first talk might run an hour or a lot less. It depends on how many questions you bring.
Changing Clothes and Finding the Water
You’ll change into a baptismal garment. We’ll have a towel there for you, and your own clothes will be waiting when you’re done.
The water is held in a baptistery, a small pool built for baptizing. In many church buildings it sits at the front of the room where the congregation worships. We meet in Suite D of a building at 416 Main Street, though, and our door is at the rear of the building rather than on the street, so where we baptize may not match the picture in your head. Ask us how and where it happens with us. We’ll tell you long before you change clothes.
If you’re nervous around water, have a health concern, or have trouble with steps or with leaning back, tell us ahead of time. We’ll plan around it with you, and you won’t be the first person who has asked.
The One Question You’ll Answer
Before you go under, you’ll confess your faith. Confessing just means saying out loud what you believe. Paul put it this way: “if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Then he set belief and that spoken confession side by side: “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (Romans 10:10).
Usually it’s a single question, something like “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?” You answer yes, or you say it in your own words. Peter said much the same thing to Jesus Himself: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16). There’s no fixed script. You can’t get it wrong by meaning it.
You won’t be saying it alone in a room, either. Paul reminded Timothy that he had “made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses” (1 Timothy 6:12). The people watching you are glad to be those witnesses.
A note on the Greek: “Confess” is homologeō, built from homos, “same,” and legō, “say.” To confess is literally to say the same thing. When you confess Jesus, you say the same thing about Him that God the Father said at His baptism, “This is my beloved Son” (Matthew 3:17), and the same thing Peter said at Caesarea Philippi. You’re agreeing out loud with what God has already said.
The Words Spoken Over You
Jesus sent His apostles out to make disciples, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). On the day the church began, Peter told a crowd in Jerusalem, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). To repent is to turn away from your sins and toward God.
So the man baptizing you, standing in the water beside you, will usually say a sentence close to this one: “Because of your confession of faith, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, for the forgiveness of your sins.” The first part comes from Jesus’ words in Matthew 28. The last part comes from Peter’s in Acts 2. The sentence spoken over you says what the Bible says about your baptism.
A note on the Greek: Matthew 28:19 says eis to onoma, “into the name,” and “name” is singular: one name shared by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In Acts, Luke describes baptisms “in the name of Jesus Christ” using three different prepositions (epi in Acts 2:38, eis in 8:16 and 19:5, en in 10:48). If Luke had meant a formula that had to be said word for word, he wouldn’t vary it. “In the name of” means by the authority of, the way an officer acts “in the name of the law.” Every baptism in the New Testament was done on Jesus’ authority, at His command, into fellowship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. What makes a baptism right is what you believe and what God does, not a perfect recitation. And “for the forgiveness” is eis aphesin, the same phrase Jesus used of His own blood, “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28).
Under and Back Up
In most baptisteries the water comes to about your waist. He’ll usually put a hand behind your back and take hold of your hand, and you’re free to pinch your nose with the other one. Then he leans you back until you’re completely under. A second or two later you’re back on your feet, soaked.
That’s how it happened in the New Testament, too. When the official from Ethiopia was baptized, “they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him” (Acts 8:38). John the Baptist chose a spot near Salim “because water was plentiful there” (John 3:23). You don’t need much water to sprinkle someone. You need plenty to immerse him.
It’s quick. It’s also a burial, and Paul calls it exactly that: “having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (Colossians 2:12). Nobody is buried halfway, which is why all of you goes under.
A note on the Greek: Baptizō means “dip,” “plunge” or “immerse.” Greek writers used it for a ship sinking or cloth being dipped in dye. Paul’s picture in Romans 6:3-4 follows the word: we’re “baptized into his death,” “buried therefore with him by baptism,” and raised “just as Christ was raised from the dead.” Down into the water, then up out of it. The shape of the act preaches the gospel of a death, a burial and a resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).
What God Does While You’re Under
The water has no power of its own. That same verse in Colossians puts the power in God’s working, and you receive it by faith. Peter said it just as plainly: “Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:21). The water doesn’t scrub you clean. God does, because Jesus rose.
A note on the Greek: “Appeal” is eperōtēma, a word for a request or a formal pledge, the kind of answer someone gives when asked a solemn question. In baptism you come to God asking for a clean conscience, on the strength of Jesus’ resurrection. That’s why the confession comes first. You’ve just said what you believe, and in the water you’re asking God to do what He promised.
What happens is God’s doing. He washes your sins away (Acts 2:38; 22:16), and He gives you “the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Paul told the Galatians, “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). You come up clothed with Christ, and you’re part of His church. “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body” (1 Corinthians 12:13). You’re added the same way people were added in the first days in Jerusalem: “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). Nobody signs you up. He does.
A note on the Greek: “Put on” is endyō, the everyday verb for getting dressed. Paul uses it for putting on a garment. The robe you wear into the water is just cloth, and you’ll hand it back with the towel. The clothing that matters is Christ Himself, and you keep that.
From there you rise to “walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Every sin you carried down into the water is forgiven. God has “forgiven us all our trespasses” (Colossians 2:13).
A note on the Hebrew: Centuries before Christ, the prophet Micah praised a God who forgives: “You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19). “Depths” is məṣulôt, the deep places where something sinks and is never brought back up. That’s where God sends the sins He forgives. You come back up out of the water. They don’t.
Your First Minutes as a Christian
You’ll dry off and change back into your own clothes. When you come out, expect people waiting to hug you and shake your hand. Sometimes the church sings.
Joy fits the occasion. Luke describes the end of one baptism on a desert road, after Philip had taught that official from Ethiopia: “And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing” (Acts 8:39). Philip was gone in a moment, and the man still went on glad. In Philippi, a jailer was baptized in the middle of the night, and afterward “he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God” (Acts 16:34). Jesus said there is “joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). The hugs are a small echo of that.
Then the growing starts. The first Christians “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42), and we’d want to keep studying with you in the weeks after. Nobody expects a brand-new Christian to have every answer on the first day. Peter’s word to every believer is to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). Everyone starts right where you are.
Who Comes to Watch, and on What Day
Anyone can come. Bring family and friends if you’d like them there. A baptism can take place during Sunday worship or at another hour, any day of the week.
Nobody outside our congregation hands us these customs. We’re independent, with no headquarters and no denomination over us, so other congregations may handle the small details another way, and the exact wording and time of day can vary from place to place. What you’ve read is how it generally goes for congregations like ours. Ask, and we’ll fill in the rest.
Ask Us Anything About Being Baptized
If you’ve been thinking about being baptized, say so to one of us. There’s nothing in the water to be afraid of, and we’d be glad to open the Bible with you first and take every question you’ve got. Schedule a Bible study, read who we are, or send us a message and tell us what’s on your mind.
Our gatherings:
Sunday mornings you’ll find us in Suite D at 416 Main Street, Honesdale, PA 18431. Pull around behind the building to park, then use the rear entrance.