Baptism

When you first come to place your trust in Christ as your Savior and choose to follow Him as your Lord and Savior, you get much more than the promise of eternal life at some distant time in the future. In a real way, the very moment you identify with Jesus’ work on the cross and trust in His resurrection, you too die, are buried and rise with Him. Baptism symbolizes this work of Jesus on the cross: as you are lowered into the water, it is like your burial with Him; as you are brought out of the water, it is like your rising with Him from the dead.

Baptism is a statement of faith. It is an opportunity to publicly declare, long before you see Jesus, that you believe and your life has been radically changed by Him. While baptism does not save you, it is a public statement that you have chosen to fully embrace the impact of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It is making the claim that you are indeed a new creation in Him, and that you now have His power to live in victory over sin.

The Great Commission: Matthew 28:16-20

Understanding the “Good News”: Acts 8:26-40

Receiving the Holy Spirit and Baptism: Acts 10:24-48

John’s Baptism vs. Baptism in the name of Jesus Christ: Acts 19:1-7

New Life Through Baptism: Romans 6:1-14

The Law, The Promise, and Faith: Galatians 3:15-29

Fullness in Christ: Colossians 2:6-15

Symbolism of Water: 1 Peter 3:14-22

At Crossroads we put a high value on being in small, intimate community with others in the body. Because of that, we believe the ideal setting for baptism would be with your family, close friends, and those most influential to your faith walk to be present and active participants in your baptism. While this can certainly happen on a Sunday morning, we would love to encourage those considering baptism to find a smaller setting to celebrate this major step in your walk with Christ.

What this can look like:

• At a lake or river with family and friends
• In a backyard pool or hot tub
• If you don’t have a body of water; a pitcher or wine decanter of water poured on your head. This could be at a room here at Crossroads, outside of a Sunday morning, or at your home.

If you are baptized in a smaller setting, we would love for you to consider video recording it so that we can share and celebrate that moment with the larger community at Crossroads. We will have roughly two Sundays a year dedicated to celebrating baptisms, and if you have chosen to be baptized in that smaller setting, we’d like to show footage of that moment with our body on one of those Sunday mornings. If you are not comfortable or don’t desire to be baptized in this sort of smaller setting, please see how we can baptize you in a Gathering below.

Ideally, we would love to have someone baptize you who has been influential in both your walk with Christ and your decision to be baptized. This could be a family member, friend, coach, teacher, pastor, or other mentor figure in your life. If you do not have someone like this in your life, or they cannot be present at your baptism, any one of Crossroads pastoral staff would love to be present and have the privilege of baptizing you on that day. If this is something you want to do, the pastor who meets with you will talk with you more about how to make this happen.

Two Sundays a year, we love to celebrate the baptisms of our Crossroads family. We do this by sharing footage of baptisms that have happened in smaller settings, and also by creating space in our gatherings for baptisms to take place. If you would like to be baptized during a Sunday morning gathering; please fill out the baptism form below. After you fill that out, you will be scheduled to meet with a Crossroads pastor, who will meet with you to discuss your baptism and explain the details of that day.

While someone from our pastor staff would love to have the opportunity to baptize you, we would like to encourage you, as done in our smaller-setting baptisms, to choose someone who has strongly influenced your walk with the Lord and decision to be baptized to either baptize you or be ready to participate in that moment (see “Who Can Baptize You?” section).

What this will look like:

• You’ll choose one of the two Sundays that we have dedicated to do baptisms
• You’ll invite family and friends to be present on that day
• You’ll have communicated with a mentor figure who can baptize you or participate in that day. If you would like a Crossroads pastor to baptize you, please share that with the pastor you meet with.
• During the service you’ll be invited to share why you are choosing to be baptized

If you would like to be baptized during our Sunday gatherings, please sign up at the link below.