# Adult Baptism in the Presbyterian church



## Reformingstudent

I know that we (Presbyterians) make an issue for infant baptism (I know our baptist brethren do not agree and that's cool, God will straighten us both out when we get home and we may learn that maybe we are both wrong to a certain degree ) What I want to know is do Presbyterians baptize adults? I know how dumb this may sound but I have yet to see a new convert in the Presbyterian church undergo baptism. As a matter of fact I don't recall ever seeing any new converts to the PCA church, at least not to the two I have belonged to. I was just wondering why that is.


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## WrittenFromUtopia

I think it is because the Reformed view the Church as growing from within, i.e. "making more Church" through our Creation mandate to be fruitful and multiply. Not to say that new converts don't come into the Church, they do all the time, it just isn't as common in a more established Presbyterian or Reformed Church, where most of the growth is by multiplication, not addition.


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## Puddleglum

Yes, Presbyterians DO baptize adults (who weren't baptized earlier in life). But I've only seen this a few times (last Sunday being one of them ). 
I've heard what Gabe has said (focus being on growing the church by having kids, not by going out and converting total strangers) before . . . I'll let everyone else debate whether or not it's right. 
I'm not sure how much of it is just the way things look - I know it seems to me that there have been a lot less baptisms at the church I'm going to right now (Presbyterian) than the Baptist church I used to go to. But there have been several people who've become members and not been baptized that would have been baptized if it were a Baptist church - so I'm not sure that there is that big of a difference.


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## WrittenFromUtopia

In my experience, Presbyterian churches baptize a lot more people than Reformed Baptist churches do. Granted, they may be covenant children being baptized, but I never saw the baptistry used one in the year I was at an SBC/RBC church here.


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## R. Scott Clark

> _Originally posted by Puddleglum_
> I'm not sure how much of it is just the way things look - I know it seems to me that there have been a lot less baptisms at the church I'm going to right now (Presbyterian) than the Baptist church I used to go to. But there have been several people who've become members and not been baptized that would have been baptized if it were a Baptist church - so I'm not sure that there is that big of a difference.



I've been both in the SBC and now in the confessional Reformed/Presbyterian churches (NAPARC). 

There are some basic and obvious questions. Are the congregations the same size? Do they have equal visibility in the community? Do they both advertise? If you're comparing a 5,000 member Baptist congregation with a 500 (a mega church in our circles!) member NAPARC congregation then you're going to get rather different "results." Most of the NAPARC congregations in which I've worshiped or served have been just trying to survive (pay the mortgage, pay the minister etc). They tend to have considerably fewer resources than their larger, more affluent mainline or evangelical neighbors.

It's hard to compare them for other reasons too. Since the baptists don't baptize infants and since they often (not always) have a revival(ist) and/or conversionist piety, the only baptisms one will see are adult (i.e., post- age 14; I know this is a generalization and not true but its hard to make generalizations about 40 million Baptists!).

Because they are more likely to have a conversionist/revival(ist) piety, there is more emphasis on getting folk to make a decision (not to say they are all decisionist) for Christ etc.

Reformed/Presbyterian churches have (or should have) a different piety. As others have pointed out we baptize and nurture our covenant children as those to whom God has made gospel promises in baptism. 

We should also make geographical distinctions. Piety and religion in the South is different than it is elsewhere. What one sees in the south (by way of "conversions") may be as much sociology as anything else. Adult conversions are expected in the South. It's a part of life. It's not so in the North where Deism set in much earlier and where secularism has reigned for many more years. So I guess there are probably more adult baptisms in the PCA (much of which is in the South) than in the URC (which has few congregations in the south).

Church life in the Midwest is quite different than church life on the West Coast. In the Midwest folks go where their parents went. Most folk have never heard of or seen a NAPARC congregation. The mainline destroyed our churches there. Since the great splits of the 1920's and 30's the NAPARC congregations have grown very slowly in the upper and lower midwest. Virtually no one in the Missouri Valley has "Presbyterian" roots to which they might return. If they do, it's to a long established (almost always liberal) mainline and socially prestigious PCUSA. NAPARC churchs are pretty marginalized in the lower midwest. There are some exceptions, but not many.

We hardly exist in the Northeast (statistically) or New England (for historical reasons). There is slow progress there and some bright spots, but most of the people in the US live on the East Coast or in LA or on the third coast. We're not particularly strong in any of those areas.

On the West Coast, even though it's relatively easier to plant NAPARC churches, most folk party until they are 30 and then start thinking about church. They start with Calvary Chapel and then perhaps move to another church. Calvary meets surfers on the beach singing "Jesus is my boyfriend" songs. Calvary asks very little of "converts." I don't think we can compete with that. We shouldn't try.

In the Northwest we hardly exist at all. Let's plant some churches in Seattle and Portland. 

So churches will look different in each region. 

NAPARC congregations will look different from Baptist congregations, however, even within the same region. Because, as has already been noted, our piety is more oriented to nurturing rather than conversion, we're less likely to do door to door evangelism (if anyone is doing that anymore) or street evangelism or hold "revivals" or special evangelistic meetings. We don't hold altar calls and we don't pressure folk to walk the aisle at the end of the service. 

As I've pointed out several times on this board there are about 500,000 folks in NAPARC churches. There are 60 million American evangelicals. The statistical possibility of walking into a NAPARC church is simply much smaller than walking into a Baptist church (there are something like 64,000 SBC congregations!).

Thus there will be fewer of every sort of phenomena, including conversion and thus there will be fewer adult baptisms and certainly no re-baptisms. We get fewer visitors. Americans are less familiar with our churches generally. The mainline Presbyterians essentially destroyed the cultural footprint of Presbyterianism in the USA. When folks look for a church they are less likely to look for a Presbyterian church. We hear all the time, "we didn't know you existed."

Do we see adult "converts"? Sure. Look at Tim Keller's church(es) in NYC. Do we see them at the rate one would like? No. Let's be honest, however. How many genuine honest-to-goodness pagans does anyone, even the Baptist churches see come to faith? I'm not talking about backslidden Baptists who, when the EE team knocks on the door, have pangs of guilt, get "re-dedicated" or "born again" or whatever. Let's rule out those who've already been baptized. Let's eliminate any and all sheep-shifting, for the sake of discussion. Now, how real, unbaptized pagans actually come to faith and get baptized anywhere in the USA? 

[In fairness to the Baptists, it was an SBC layman who first evangelized me and it was an SBC that nurtured me initially. I only became Reformed when I started looking for theological answers. I suspect my story is not unique]

I know it happens, but the numbers and perceptions change once we think about all the factors involved.

Should our people be better trained to speak to others about their faith and the faith? Absolutely! Should our preachers be preaching Christ and him crucified, distinguishing between law/gospel? Absolutely! 

What do pagans find when they visit our churches? How many of our people want to bring their friends to church? How many of our people are happy with their congregation and enthused enough to invite someone? How many times have folk brought someone to church only have the minister preach an inappropriate sermon or a sermon preached inappropriately? How gracious and winsome are we? How well do we explain our liturgy? 

If our ministers and congregations would concentrate more on Word (law and gospel) and sacrament ministry and let the church be the CHURCH instead of just another religious agency for social transformation (a conservative social gospel isn't really a great improvement over a liberal social gospel) or avenue of religious entertainment, we might, in the providence of God, see more adult converts.

rsc


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## Romans922

Two high schoolers were baptized at my church this past Sunday.


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## Ivan

> _Originally posted by WrittenFromUtopia_
> I never saw the baptistry used one in the year I was at an SBC/RBC church here.



WOW! That's incredible. I know there are SBC churches that are in that position, but that's never been my experience. We have a very small SBC church and we still average about ten baptisms a year.


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## Preach

I used to be a SBC pastor. Our church plant is an independent Presbyterian (we are in the process of joining PCA). I still receive the SBC literature. A few months ago, I received the MD/DEL Baptist paper, and it said that last year (I think it was either referring to 2004 or 2005) approx. 10,000 SBC churches had no baptisms.

So, at the SBC national convention, they decided to actually baptize recent professors so those in attendance could see what a baptism looks like.


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## SRoper

You aren't going to see many adult baptisms in a PCA church because the PCA generally doesn't rebaptize. Most of the people entering the PCA have already been baptised. Credobaptists, on the other hand, have many more excuses for rebaptism. If you were baptised as an infant you need to be rebaptised. If you were baptised by a mode other than immersion you need to be rebaptised. If you were baptised as an adult but there is some doubt whether you were really a believer at the time you need to be rebaptised.


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## Ivan

> _Originally posted by Preach_
> I used to be a SBC pastor. Our church plant is an independent Presbyterian (we are in the process of joining PCA). I still receive the SBC literature. A few months ago, I received the MD/DEL Baptist paper, and it said that last year (I think it was either referring to 2004 or 2005) approx. 10,000 SBC churches had no baptisms.
> 
> So, at the SBC national convention, they decided to actually baptize recent professors so those in attendance could see what a baptism looks like.



True, true. But there are about 30,000 more SBC churches! Although I am a SBC minister, belong to a SBC church, I pay little to no attention as to what goes on in the Convention. I find it boring.

I know, I know.....


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## Semper Fidelis

Dr. Clark,

Your whole post was informative and entertaining. I really liked this part:


> _Originally posted by R. Scott Clark_
> On the West Coast, even though it's relatively easier to plant NAPARC churches, most folk party until they are 30 and then start thinking about church. They start with Calvary Chapel and then perhaps move to another church. Calvary meets surfers on the beach singing "Jesus is my boyfriend" songs. Calvary asks very little of "converts." I don't think we can compete with that. We shouldn't try.




Calvary Chapel in SoCal is like kudzu in Georgia. I think over half of our members in my OPC Church in Temecula were Calvary Chapel.

For what it's worth, we had at least 3-4 adult baptisms while I attended our OPC Church in Temecula from 2000-2003. We even had real, honest-to-goodness, atheists that had been converted by our Church.

We were a small Church but had (and still have) a lot of motivation to reach past our walls, which is not always so. We even did door-to-door evangelism. In that area, especially, there are a lot of Mormons that frequent the neighborhoods. There are also JW's floating around. I actually even had Roman Catholics come to my door (I invited them back after asking them some challenging questions to ask their Priest but they never returned). Temecula, and the Inland Empire are actually considered the "Bible Belt" of SoCal.

Our Church of only about 40-60 regular attendees sent out mailings to the neighborhood, advertised on radio, and other things. We spent a nominal amount to have speakers come to our Church to lecture on Mormonism and children's education. We called them "Equipping the Saints" seminars and opened it up to the community and the Calvary Bible College nearby. In fact, we even had some students start to show up regularly (but for one 9 am every Sunday was too early so he quit coming). We also had Reformation Parties every year and would submit a press release to the local newspaper telling them what Reformation Day was on October 31. The point is that, if creative, there are inexpensive and interesting ways to get the word out about a small Church.

When I moved to Quantico, VA in Aug 2003 I really saw a NAPARC congregation with incredible outreach. In fact, that area sees alot of growth from "sheep moving" AND conversion of atheists. One thing I saw that my Church did in Northern VA that you do not see enough of is outreach to the Mexican immigrant community. You talk about a people hungry for the Gospel. They didn't speak English but were welcome in our congregation on Sunday morning where there was always a person translating quietly what was going on. We even had an occassional sermon that was translated into Spanish and Korean (we also had them there). Northern VA, like a lot of other States has a large influx of immigrants who are moving out from traditional places they've typically congregated. Southern CA has a huge, untapped population of people hungry for the Gospel in communities with lots of comfortable, white upper middle class Churches. Our problem is not having fields to plant but a sinful desire that the fruit look and act like us. They take a lot of work in some cases.

I think, finally, one of the reasons some NAPARC congregations find themselves static is because they're become a bit too particular or "odd". It's certainly one extreme that the Calvary folk pander to but some NAPARC congregations really give a vibe off that you need to both repent of your sins, believe in Christ AND become a homeschooler, be a theonomist (or rabid BT guy), etc. For example, it's one thing to have a conviction that your children need to do EVERYTHING with you, including the entire service and a consolidated Sunday School. Hence, the Church has no nursery or Sunday School program because everybody is together because you've got a small Church where consensus has been formed. How many pagans will never return, or would just up and leave before preaching, because they're just not at a point where they can have their 6 month old with them for 2 hours?

Anyway, you get my point. There are plenty of ways that NAPARC congregations could be more effective if they didn't do so much navel gazing.


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## R. Scott Clark

> _Originally posted by SemperFideles_
> Dr. Clark,
> 
> Your whole post was informative and entertaining. I really liked this part:
> 
> 
> 
> _Originally posted by R. Scott Clark_
> On the West Coast, even though it's relatively easier to plant NAPARC churches, most folk party until they are 30 and then start thinking about church. They start with Calvary Chapel and then perhaps move to another church. Calvary meets surfers on the beach singing "Jesus is my boyfriend" songs. Calvary asks very little of "converts." I don't think we can compete with that. We shouldn't try.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Calvary Chapel in SoCal is like kudzu in Georgia. I think over half of our members in my OPC Church in Temecula were Calvary Chapel.
> 
> For what it's worth, we had at least 3-4 adult baptisms while I attended our OPC Church in Temecula from 2000-2003. We even had real, honest-to-goodness, atheists that had been converted by our Church.
> 
> We were a small Church but had (and still have) a lot of motivation to reach past our walls, which is not always so. We even did door-to-door evangelism. In that area, especially, there are a lot of Mormons that frequent the neighborhoods. There are also JW's floating around. I actually even had Roman Catholics come to my door (I invited them back after asking them some challenging questions to ask their Priest but they never returned). Temecula, and the Inland Empire are actually considered the "Bible Belt" of SoCal.
> 
> Our Church of only about 40-60 regular attendees sent out mailings to the neighborhood, advertised on radio, and other things. We spent a nominal amount to have speakers come to our Church to lecture on Mormonism and children's education. We called them "Equipping the Saints" seminars and opened it up to the community and the Calvary Bible College nearby. In fact, we even had some students start to show up regularly (but for one 9 am every Sunday was too early so he quit coming). We also had Reformation Parties every year and would submit a press release to the local newspaper telling them what Reformation Day was on October 31. The point is that, if creative, there are inexpensive and interesting ways to get the word out about a small Church.
> 
> When I moved to Quantico, VA in Aug 2003 I really saw a NAPARC congregation with incredible outreach. In fact, that area sees alot of growth from "sheep moving" AND conversion of atheists. One thing I saw that my Church did in Northern VA that you do not see enough of is outreach to the Mexican immigrant community. You talk about a people hungry for the Gospel. They didn't speak English but were welcome in our congregation on Sunday morning where there was always a person translating quietly what was going on. We even had an occassional sermon that was translated into Spanish and Korean (we also had them there). Northern VA, like a lot of other States has a large influx of immigrants who are moving out from traditional places they've typically congregated. Southern CA has a huge, untapped population of people hungry for the Gospel in communities with lots of comfortable, white upper middle class Churches. Our problem is not having fields to plant but a sinful desire that the fruit look and act like us. They take a lot of work in some cases.
> 
> I think, finally, one of the reasons some NAPARC congregations find themselves static is because they're become a bit too particular or "odd". It's certainly one extreme that the Calvary folk pander to but some NAPARC congregations really give a vibe off that you need to both repent of your sins, believe in Christ AND become a homeschooler, be a theonomist (or rabid BT guy), etc. For example, it's one thing to have a conviction that your children need to do EVERYTHING with you, including the entire service and a consolidated Sunday School. Hence, the Church has no nursery or Sunday School program because everybody is together because you've got a small Church where consensus has been formed. How many pagans will never return, or would just up and leave before preaching, because they're just not at a point where they can have their 6 month old with them for 2 hours?
> 
> Anyway, you get my point. There are plenty of ways that NAPARC congregations could be more effective if they didn't do so much navel gazing.
Click to expand...


Ooh-rah marine!

Semper fi.

rsc


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## Puddleglum

Okay, generalizations are hard to make. Well, easy to make, but hard to make them be right.  (Though, for the record, the baptist church I was comparing to my current Presbyterian church was about 1/3 of the size - and my current church is a NAPARC member and in the Seattle area . . . so I guess that doesn't really fit any generalizations). 

I think Scott's point about rebaptizing is right . . .


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## Semper Fidelis

> _Originally posted by R. Scott Clark_
> Ooh-rah marine!
> 
> Semper fi.
> 
> rsc


Dr. Clark,

As you are a theologian you will understand that I really must insist on some precision here.

1. Good use of the term ooh-rah!
2. The title Marine is ALWAYS capitalized.



Semper Fi,

Rich


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## Pilgrim

> _Originally posted by SRoper_
> You aren't going to see many adult baptisms in a PCA church because the PCA generally doesn't rebaptize. Most of the people entering the PCA have already been baptised. Credobaptists, on the other hand, have many more excuses for rebaptism. If you were baptised as an infant you need to be rebaptised. If you were baptised by a mode other than immersion you need to be rebaptised. If you were baptised as an adult but there is some doubt whether you were really a believer at the time you need to be rebaptised.



 A large number of the baptisms in credo churches are rebaptisms, particularly in more revivalistic churches.


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## BobVigneault

I've seen two adult baptisms in our OPC church in the last year. One was my wife, praise the Lord.


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## CDM

> _Originally posted by SemperFideles_
> 
> 
> 
> _Originally posted by R. Scott Clark_
> Ooh-rah marine!
> 
> Semper fi.
> 
> rsc
> 
> 
> 
> Dr. Clark,
> 
> As you are a theologian you will understand that I really must insist on some precision here.
> 
> 1. Good use of the term ooh-rah!
> 2. The title Marine is ALWAYS capitalized.
> 
> 
> 
> Semper Fi,
> 
> Rich
Click to expand...


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