17 June 2009
Baptismal songs
I am baptising two people on Sunday - its so exciting.
This afternoon one of my congregation asked are we singing 'I am following' and proceeded to sing it to me. I'd never heard of it. Apparently we 'always' sing it after a baptism! We didn't with the other baptisms I have done here and the two people concerned wouldn't know it. So we won't sing it.
But it got me thinking... at my home church we tended to sing 'he is Lord, he is Lord, he is risen from the dead and he is Lord'.
I know which one I would rather sing because one focuses on what 'I' , the human, am doing, and the other a the confessional statement of who God is. (for those who don't know me it would be the latter!)
Do others have traditional songs they sing at the point of baptism?
How much does/should our theology of baptism affect this choice, if at all?
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When I was growing up, we always sang 'Just as I am, without one plea... O Lamb of God I come' at baptisms - one verse between each baptism (we never had more than 6 baptisms in one go - maybe this is why!). I can clearly remember at the age of about 10 singing the final verse and deciding that I too wanted to make the commitment of Baptism:
Just as I am - of that free love
The breadth, length, depth and height to prove,
Here for a season, then above,
O Lamb of God, I come.
But then, after the baptisms were over, we would sing 'O happy day that fixed my choice on Thee my Saviour and my God!'
Both these hymns seem entirely theologically appropriate for baptisms. So why, I wonder, is it that in my own batismal practice as a pastor I have studiously avoided both these songs?
It's certainly not because I don't like them. Partly is because they're quite dated, and the church I pastored wouldn't have known them, but also I think it's because part of me thinks cherished memories should stay that way...
Posted by: Baptist Bookworm | 18 June 2009
My husband was a member of the Methodist church here in the UK until quite recently and he used to get sooo frustrated by the usual response to the possibility of trying anything new;
'But we've ALWAYS done it THIS way'.
It was a good thing that that wasn't John Wesley's attitude!!!
Posted by: Kay | 18 June 2009
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