Baptism

The baptism


The family with our pastor, Frank.

Well, one week later and I finally am getting a few of these pictures uploaded. Sorry for the delay. I have stolen these off facebook from various families that were able to come. When I tried earlier in the week facebook wasn't cooperating. Anyway...

Doug and I recently joined Hope Methodist Church. We have been attending there since May of last year and really love it there. It isn't your typical Methodist church - it is very contemporary and and casual. The preaching is also not only good, but convicting. I have said before that our pastor, Frank Bernant, just has a way of explaining things in a way that makes sense.

Neither Doug, nor myself, grew up Methodist, and while we are still learning about the denomination our main concern was that the Word was being preached. I did grow up Presbyterian, so infant baptism was something I was taught and grew up practicing. Ironically, I was baptized in the Methodist church. While I am not hear to debate the issues of infant baptism, it is something Doug and I have chosen for our family and feel that it has biblical merit.

Our day started out hectic. We opted to baptized Douglass Charles at the early service. Our family normally attends the late service at 11:00. We felt the early service would work best with all the festivities later in the day. So we met with the pastor, set the whole thing up, and we were told to be there fifteen minutes early.

So... with all the craziness with all the family here we managed to get off at 8:45 to get to the church fifteen minutes early and knew that our families wouldn't be far behind us.

We got to the church at about ten after nine and the place was packed, there were no greeters outside, no one rushing in the doors. It was eerily weird. We walked in to find Doug's grandparents, aunt and sisters who had all traveled over from Alpharetta. And, you guessed it, the service had already started. I was so embarassed.

The staff quickly kicked into gear and told us we were up next after the current song that was being sung. That is when I knew our parents were going to miss it and they did. As we walked off the stage our parents walked in. I felt horrible.

So what happened. I thought the service started at 9:30 and it began at 9:00. Because we never discussed the time the being there fifteen minutes early part was easily miscommunicated because it was assumed that we knew the correct time of the early service - as I should have known since we have attended there for almost a year.

People say we will laugh about it later, but I still shed a few tears and felt horrible for all those that made such an effort to be there for us. The fact is, our little guy was still baptized. It was still special and some of our loved ones were still there to witness that special moment.

Stay tuned for how little Douglass Charles made up for his mommy's oh so horrible blunder. :)