Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Baptisms

I am not one to spend too much time in the past and I don’t visit there very often. I never thought it did anyone much good and if you’re not too careful you can get stuck there. When you’re stuck in the past your life passes you by and opportunities that hit you in the face fall to the floor without ever being taken advantage of.

My past is mostly catalogued anyway in the books that I’ve written and more recently in the blogs that I post. Stories of marvelous and sometimes tragic things that I’ve witnessed or participated in are used to illustrate thoughts or feelings that I hope to convey.

Well Face Book has reconnected me with my past. Childhood friends, High School friends, college friends, Seminary friends, homeless friends, professional friends, and just friends all collide on the page everyday. It is a wonderful and miraculous thing to experience!

And it reminds me of stories long stored away. Yesterday my friend David from Seminary wrote about a blog that I’d written and reminded me that he was born by the sea too.

Then Seminary and water came together in my mind and I was reminded of the baptismal pool at the Jefferson Street Baptist Chapel where I was once employed as a professional Christian. The large pool had a backdrop that was a painting of the River Jordan where Jesus was baptized. The water was painted as brown which is actually what the River Jordon looked like though the water in the pool was as blue and crystal clear as the Caribbean.

Anyway, there were all of these homeless people sleeping outside and I was in charge of this building called a sanctuary that had bars on the window to keep people out when a sanctuary is a place for people to go. I was in seminary at the time so I knew everything!

There were also all of these unused Sunday School rooms in the building because the only people who came to Church were five little old ladies who started attending before the bars had been installed on the windows.

So the ladies and I had a garage sale getting ride of all of the cute wooden tables and chairs and used the money to buy beds. Then we invited homeless people to live inside of the Sunday School rooms. Very Biblical stuff, huh?

After about two weeks you could tell homeless people were living in a church because the place stank. Most Churches do not have shower facilities.

BUT, we had a baptismal pool! I filled it up, passed out soap, and the dirty became clean!

It was by far the most popular part of the Church. I would wander to the baptismal pool and several homeless guys would be naked, lounging around, enjoying themselves. They took to buying candles to set a better ambiance than the brown water of the River Jordan. Many days my young son Jeremy, around four at the time, would be swimming around them having a good time.

So the Baptist at corporate headquarters in Atlanta would send me this form to fill out every month. How many people came to Sunday School? How many people came to Church? How many people got saved? How many people got baptized?

The Baptist in corporate headquarters believes that Jesus called us to count his sheep and not necessarily feed them.

As a professional Christian I was obligated to fill out the form and the answers were always the same. Five. Five. Zero. 487.

Later the Chapel was recognized for shattering the convention’s record of baptisms in one year!

Ah, good times.