Cool Choirs, Clappy Choruses, Cringy Coffee: Religion Chat Thread No 5

[madhairday]

I thought seeing as our other thread has gone somewhere into the oblivion that is old MN pages, I would start us up again anew for a new term. This is a place for those who are Christians (and anyone who's not, we're not an exclusive little club) to chat about life, theology, church, any other stuff and of course Graham Kendrick, as nickel would not forgive me if I forgot to mention him

So all welcome, old and new, it would be fun to chat and chew over anything that comes to mind. Lurkers say hello!

Anyone got a nice juicy topic to get the ball rolling then? Or if not come say hi anyway and tell us how you are doing. :)

We belong to a Baptist church where there are no infant baptisms, only adults get baptised by full immersion.
There are infant dedications, all of which are done in the main service.
When our grandaughter was baptised it was done in a CofE church in a separate service. They chose the hymns and the readings. It was a beautiful service and nobody seemed to mind that neither parent or at least one of the godparents were baptised themselves.

the christening name comes from when it (usually in RC) was used as a naming ceremony as well.
even now your baptism certificate can be used as proof of change of name in an infant (it can be used to change your birth certificate if you're under 1)

Sharks - i feel that baptism is for the child's life, not the parents', so i don't think it matters if the parents are christians, as long as they are going to put the children the right path. that's why it's important to have /godparents. :)

that's also why it was shameful that in the "old days" they refused to baptise a baby born out of wedlock - why punish a baby for the parents' sins? [

:( nimimy

We have christenings as part of the normal Sunday service. Minister meets with the parents a few weeks in advance to discuss what is involved. I like it that the whole congregation gets to welcome the child. I think it helps to make the babies more a part of the church community, rather than a noisy incovenience.

In the church we go to at present, baptisms take place in our all age service which is once a month, and there are often baptisms. We have a proper baptismal pool thingy in the floor which is cool, the vicar gets in and either dunks the person or more regularly holds the baby and scoops the water from the pool. Funny when it's a toddler who just wants to paddle

I'm not sure what they do about baptism prep or inviting back, but a lot seem to come and get done and never get seen again :(

They don't get much input in songs etc which I think is a shame. When our church is set up people will have input in the service, have to do a baptsim prep course, get invited back lots to stuff and generally feel welcomed into the church family. IN his curacy dh would send a card every year to those families he'd baptised babies in, just to say hello and celebrating the anniversary, and would put in any flyers or stuff about upcoming events/services etc, a few poeple came back that way.

I agree that baptisms out of service are a shame and not in the spirit of it at all.

niminy :( what do you think is going on/not going on in your church? I'm so sorry to hear it feels this way.

Hi, can I join you all? I was on a Christian prayer thread a while ago but it slipped off my radar and I didn't find it again. I have a DS (4 months old) and my DH doesn't go to church.

of course you can join! :)

welcome to the thread!

i think some of the other newbies have been saved the traditional newbie inquisition questions, but here they are:

happy clappy or traditional?
choir or singing group?
organ or keyboards/bands?
hymn books or screens?
and the important one: do you like Graham Kendrick?

Thanks :)
More happy clappy than traditional, singers and band, screens and yes (had Shine Jesus Shine at our wedding)

Nickel... Are you keeping a spreadsheet? Welcome lalabaloo. There are no wrong answers... only a wonderful variety of ways of getting it right!

OK. I know I am going to sound really ignorant here (no change there!) but I have to ask this. Having only ever witnessed the 'hold baby at arm's length and dab with water' kind of baptism, if you're doing the full immersion kind... what do people wear?

MHD - I love your dh's post-baptism follow-up. That's how it should be, isn't it?

Niminy - It struck me when DD was baptised that there were three of them going forward for confirmation who hadn't been baptised, and I wondered (fairly idly) then whether there was a bit of a move away from infant baptism and more of a tendency to wait till they could decide for themselves? Are there people in your church coming for baptism later, having not been done as babies? Or is it really no-one? I must admit we don't get loads (a couple of infant baptisms a year since I've been going), but I assumed that that was down to the 'cathedral-ness' of it, as I mentioned earlier.

Hello lalabaloo, welcome

sharks, we have dedications at my church, then baptism by full immersion for those who make the choice. Both are done as part of the main service, maybe four baptism services a year (often with about 20 people being baptised) and a couple of dedication services (featuring probably about 10 babies/children). I hope we have a one soon actually as am keen to have DS dedicated.

Tuo people tend to wear something lightweight and loose - shorts, t-shirt, linen-type trousers etc. Have seen plenty of guys get baptised in swimming shorts.

I will do the 'newbie' questions :)

happy clappy or traditional? Happy clappy! Was brought up Anglican though and love a good traditional service.
choir or singing group? Depends how good they are!
organ or keyboards/bands? We have a band at church (couple of electric guitars, acoustic, bass, drums, keyboards, singers, other instruments e.g. violin, saxophone as and when)
hymn books or screens? Screen, although I do enjoy hymn books thanks to my C of E years ;)
and the important one: do you like Graham Kendrick? I don't mind him. In recent years my church has gone more down the 'rock' end of worship (Hillsongs, Worship Central type stuff) so we don't sing much of his stuff any more.

ballroom your church sounds great, where are you?

I am in Cambridgeshire :) I go to a large church that has been on television a couple of times, not sure if you've seen it or know which one I mean!

TUO in our church you get the choice of wearing a white baptismal gown (with lead weights sewn into the hem so the thing doesn't float over your head) or whatever you like otherwise.

lalabaloo - you've given the right answers to some of us, and the wrong answers to some of us

that's all i'm saying on the matter

welcome

the best thing about this thread is the diversity of worship styles.
(I do feel it seems to be leaning towards the modern, though... I might have to do some recruiting )
oh, yes, as mhd says, you will get joshing about each other's musical preferences, but it's okay, because it's all light-hearted and good fun

DD got her head properly splashed, hanging over the font, because that's what we wanted.
Friend's baby this weekend was splashed but from a mile away from the font!
but their baptism part of the service was done better than in our church (apart from DD's baptism, of course, because we didn't want aforementioned old man priest because we wanted someone who would hold her, so we had a different visiting priest, and she did us a whole service based around the baptism (and it was the Queen's Jubilee too, so we had God Save the Queen at the end- complete with kids waving flags ), so it was different from a normal baptism.

ballroom - i like your answers - they are all-encompassing and sound very diplomatic.

Hm ballroompink I am in Cambridgeshire too - I'm scratching my head to think which your church is!

I think the problems at our church are longstanding. It's a really, really difficult parish, and the incumbent is very demoralised (and perhaps does not have the ideal skill set for our particular needs), and there are few people around with both the time and resources to give to the church. There is no curate and the incumbent is the only clergy, and we don't even have a lay reader (partly because the incumbent hs never encouraged it). And we are in a community with ingrained deprivation and educational underachievement and low aspiration and general apathy towards community action. There's no culture of doing stuff. So it is all very difficult, and sometimes I feel, glumly, as if the diocese is just waiting for the incumbent to retire and then will close the church.

nickel I hope you are really doing that spread sheet. It could be a very important sociological document

Ballroompink, would you happen to have a pastor called Dave? :) Am also in Cambridgeshire and wonder if its the church I am thinking of...

Mary yes that's right :)

In that case, I have friends who go there too, I think :). Used to meet in a school hall? I went with them once :)

Yes! Although I wasn't there during the school hall years - have been attending since 2008.

Nickel: You need to add 'Are you in Cambridgeshire?' to the spreadsheet!

[I'm not, though now I'm kind of wishing I was, as there seems to be a bit of a cluster of us there...]

I'm at work and meant to be in a meeting (but I said I'd be 15 mins late, so I am determined actually to be 15 mins late) but just felt that I should come in a waft some virtual incense over Nickel just to keep up the 'trad' side of things...

~~~wafty~~~wafty~~~waft~~*~

Thanks for all the answers re. full immersion. That sounds kind of fun. DD got properly wet when she was baptised too, but that's because the Bishop was a bit over-excited with the water (Happy Splashy, as it were...). He gave the congregation a good sprinkling too, whilst chuckling and saying 'You should know better than to give me a sprig of rosemary and some holy water'. We have a video of the service which features my (not really church-going) dad looking slightly startled! (This was the suffragan bishop. The other one is a bit less ... how can I put it? ... lively!)

Anyway... two mins to get to my meeting now and I shall be exactly 15 mins late. Hooray!