Friday, January 29, 2010

Getting baptized this Sunday

For my preschool cirriculum class I have to do 35 hours of field experience with 4 year olds. I am meeting someone tomorrow at a preschool to meet the teacher, get approved by the director, and give them my info. I really want to teach 3rd grade (2nd and 4th are ok too), and 4 year olds are not really what I want to do. But we'll be certified from pre-k to 5th grade. I enjoy playing with / baby-sitting that age, but teaching them is so difficult! Anyways, we'll see how it goes. The whole process of getting in touch with a school, meeting them, setting up a schedule, etc. is kind of  a pain and I'm always nervous about how it will go. 35 hours.... I can ony go on Fridays (because of my other classes being in the mornings) and I try to remind myself that it will only be for about 7-8 weeks.

Tomorrow I'm also having lunch with Louise, a lady from my church who has been on both Kenya trips with me. I always enjoy our time together because she is always so encouraging to me and I enjoy talking to her.

In bible study we're going to start reading Francis Chan's new book, "Forgotten God." He wrote "Crazy Love" which was a big hit. We read that book and did a bible study on it last year. This one is on the holy spirit. It should be interesting. Last night we talked about what we knew about the holy spirit, what we thought about it, read some bible verses, etc, and just had an intro to it. I'm excited about it because I feel like we know so much about God and Jesus and not as much about the holy spirit.

This Sunday I am getting baptized. I was baptized as a baby and in the presbyterian church that's just the way you do it. You can still get baptized when you're older too, but most people don't do it twice. I've always felt like God has ALWAYS been in my life. When I was 11 or 12, I formally prayed for God to be in my heart and life, but I didn't feel like it was a big change because he already was. I just made it official I guess. But other than that, I've just grown up in a church where you don't really get baptized again. And for the past two and a half years I've been at a church where they don't baptize babies, they only do it when they're older and they dunk them. Because in the bible whenever they talk about salvation, they link believing and baptizing together.


Mark 16:16, "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."

Acts 2:38, "Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

Matthew 28:19-20, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

So I've prayed about it for 2 years or so but finally feel like I should. I've felt I shouldn't before because I equate getting baptized to new christians. To "starting over." And that's not me. It is for most people though. It's not me just now coming to God, or just now recieving the holy spirit. It's not about me wanting to tell everybody that I follow Jesus because I already have been. It's about doing what the bible has said. Jesus was baptized, and it's not like HE was just then becoming a follower of God - He was God! haha. And in so many instances it links being baptized and believing together. I don't think that people aren't going to heaven if they dont' get baptized as long as they believe in Jesus and his death on the cross for us, but if baptisim is what God asks us to do, why not do it?

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