“Dunk me!” Karen cried, after I asked how she would like to be baptized. “I want to go all the way in!” Karen hadn’t walked into our church wanting that. In fact, she had attended for several years without making a commitment. There are many people in the world today for whom Christianity is not a given, and the continued, open invitation of a congregation can go a long way toward bringing them to the font.
We now have the chance to strengthen the church by returning to what worked long ago: handing on the faith by witness and by practice, developing the skills of a lifelong faith journey with the guidance of people of faith along the way of Christ.
We live in a culture where the light of faith is more often hidden under a bushel than shared around a neighborhood. Our congregations have the opportunity and the obligation to bring the unchurched—baptized or not—into the community where people can nurture each other in a faith that is alive and relevant and support one another in prayer and service to the world.
This message was adapted from the “Making a Way to the Font” by Beverly Piro that appeared in the March 2009 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine.
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