Difference between CofE and Baptist?

[EeyoreIsh]

I'm from an Anglican background, and have always gone to anglican churches. Although I'm primarily of the view that the gospel is the gospel, and for the main part, differences in theological interpretations are not critical.

We moved to a new area last summer, and we were going to a C of E church. But we're wanting to find another church. We never settled there, DH and I have been through a shitty time recently and we didn't feel we had any fellowship from the Church. And then last Sunday the sermon was really homophobic, which we think was unacceptable.

So today we went to a baptist Church. It felt nice, really reflective.

But I don't really know anything about baptist churches. Can anyone enlightenment me please?

We are attending a C of E church but DS1 has rugby on Sunday mornings for 8 months of the year, so he attends the local Baptist church once a month on a Sunday evening.

The differences seem to be minor; they don't Christen babies but wait until the child is in their teens and can make their own vows, but many Anglicans (including us) do that these days.

Usually baptism is done by full immersion, but again many Anglican churches do this. Our current church and the one before (both C of E) have baptismal pools that are used as often as the fonts.

Communion is administered slightly differently.

The differences seem to be in style rather than in doctrine. I'm not a theologian or a deominational expert though; hopefully someone will come along who knows what they are talking about.

This might help

You might find this thread helpful

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/philosophy_religion_spirituality/1755489-Are-there-any-Baptists-here-who-could-tell-me-a-bit-about-it-Church-shopping-awful-phrase-but

This is roughly what I said on the other thread....

I go to a small free church which is very similar to a Baptist Church, we do not have our own building but do have a paid minister and an elder or two.

I started going to a free church four years ago because we moved from a large Anglican one and I must admit I miss some of the stuff (like communion) although having gone to an evangelical (low) Anglican church there was not much 'pomp' if you know what I mean!

The things I noticed most are that we have church members meetings where we all hear about everything! which is very different from C of E where a committee (PCC) decides stuff.

The communion in our church is pieces of Matzo bread and tiny plastic cups of wine (grape juice). When we have communion we eat the bread when we receive it individually and then all drink our tiny cups together! All churches may vary so maybe if you take communion just watch what ones do! wink

One big difference will possibly be whether or not the Baptist church is a member of BUGB www.baptist.org.uk/ if they are then you can take a look at the BUGB website and see more about them. If they are not then see if they are affliliated to any other organisation.

For example a Baptist church near us is a member of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches FIEC and my church is also a member of the FIEC. Members of the FIEC do not accept women in main leadership roles, so they would not have women elders or pastors but they would have women leading worship, reading the Bible, leading Sunday school, helping with outreach and leading in smaller groups like house group and maybe an evening service.

BUGB now has a woman at the top (from September this year), www.baptist.org.uk/latest-news/981-new-gen-sec.html Rev Lynn Green will be new General Secretary.

Personally, I do not agree with the limitation of women in leadership so wish my church was part of BUGB rather than FIEC but we choose our church by heart not head, as in we went along and loved the people before I found out that women do not have ultimate leadership roles!

In some ways this is probably similar to the current situation with the C of E, not having women bishops (although I think that will change).

I wanted to say this because I was probably under the impression that Baptist churches all accepted women leaders and if you go to a service you may well see a woman up the front doing things at church and assume they can do anything! So if you want to know what they believe or think, then ask, don't assume it will be the same as you are used to or the same as other churches, unlike Anglican churches, Baptist churches have more freedom to vary exactly how they run things, I think!

It really depends what is important to you and so it is worth checking out the individual church website should somewhere state what they believe and which organisation/s (if any) they are affiliated to.

The adult baptism thing is something I am more than happy with and we chose not to have our daughter baptised as a child (she was dedicated in an Anglican church). When we arrived at our free church we attended for a year and then became members, which involved being formally welcomed in the service. We were not asked to be baptised as adults and the fact we had made our own declaration of faith as adults in our own C of E context many years ago was fine. I actually think I would be happy either way but again you may wish to just ask what they think if you find yourself wanting to actually join.

This is slightly varied from what I wrote on the other thread. One other thing I would say is that if you are particulerly concerned about the issue of gay marriage/relationships you may like to explore on the internet beforehand which denominations have what may be desribed as a 'tolerant' or 'accepting' attitude. The reason I say this is because over the last year I have changed from sitting on the fence to feeling very positive about gay marriage. May Christians of different denominations will have different views and you may find people with accepting or non-accepting views in any denomination. However there are certain denominations that generally are more accepting than others and if this is very important to you you may wish to research on this.

Baptists being congregational will vary from place to place and Italiangreyhound has given some really good pointers for working out where your lot are by affiliation.

No church is perfect. If it is fellowship and support you really need right now then you might have to compromise on something else. It depends on where that line is for you.

Thanks everyone for taking time to give some comprehensive responses !

I shall do a bit more research about this Church. It being a liberal Church is really important to me. I'd also like it if there were people the same age as me, but I live in a town with an older demographic. I've resigned myself to only meeting others my own age once I have kids!

They were really friendly to me yesterday, which is a good first step.

The limitation of women in leadership are given in the bible. 1 Timoth 2-15

The structure is different, Baptist churches are less controlled by a hierarchy. Also fewer rules about communion etc. Eg in an Anglican church it will be quite strict who can bless the bread and wine, Baptist church any suitable member would be able to lead communion. Members vote on issues, choose own pastor etc. Some will be very liberal, others conservative so no one description fits. I guess it depends which bits of the Bible are most important in your view.

I grew up in Baptist churches and now go to a CofE.

As others have said (and like CofE churches) they can vary hugely in terms of being evangelical / traditional / more liberal etc. The ones I experienced were on the charismatic end of the scale (so what people would call 'happy clappy'), but fairly evangelical in terms of theology - not keen on women being formally elders / ministers, for example, though I did preach once at my last Baptist church, and a couple of other women did as well.

They don't generally have communion every Sunday morning (but some will do it every week, alternating morning and evening, for example). They don't generally have the common cup (hurrah!).

They might well 'dedicate' babies, but won't christen them like the CofE do, and baptism is left until the person's of an age to want it for themselves, and is by full immersion.

As someone else has said, church meetings usually involve all members and can be....interesting...!! Things are usually decided by vote as long as there's a quorum. Becoming a member of a Baptist church is slightly different from the CofE as well - you usually have to be baptised in the church before you become a member, though I think being baptised as a child is ok (in the CofE, for example), and then your former minister/vicar will confirm that you already been baptised if that's the case.
I know when I became a member at my uni church they got in touch with my previous church to confirm I'd been baptised and was generally ok!! You're then welcomed into membership at a church meeting. It's a bit more of a formal process than with the CofE.

This thread is 8 years old now - the OP has probably long gone.