Pat's Baptism

Before going down into the water, Pat spoke to the congregation about her new faith and why she was now going to be baptised. This is the text of her speech that afternoon: "I just want to say thank you all for coming. It’s really great for me to see you all here to celebrate this special day. The day that my friends and I get baptised. You might think "why get baptised?" - well because Jesus said "Believe and be baptised". Some of you here today might be wondering why I am being baptised especially when you know I have already been baptised as a baby. The answer is because as a baby I didn’t understand and didn’t believe…… I didn’t understand what I was doing as a baby how could I? Today I do know what I am doing and why. I am getting Baptised to show to God, myself and you, that I have accepted Jesus into my life and that He died for me to save me from my sins.

And if some of you are thinking He’s got His work cut out with this one…… well you’re right because it’s taken me about 6 years to get this far and I don’t think God hasn’t finished with me yet!

But let’s go back about 6 years ago, that was when I heard that the BIBLE was the best book to read to get a positive mental attitude and as I really believe in having a positive attitude I started to read it. I didn’t have any clear ideas or direction, I just started to read it. After a while I realised I needed to find out more so I started going to a few churches to see if I liked them but well…. they were ok, but not really what I was looking for. Then about 4 years ago I started going out with David and he invited me to his church - Gt. Harwood Christian Fellowship. This was the church for me … and it had nothing at all to do with the fact that I was going out with David!! NOT MUCH!

Oh 1 or 2 people have asked me "what is a Christian Fellowship?"…… it’s a gathering of people, a church, that bases its beliefs and practices on the Bible. And I want to say a big thank you to the people of this church for all their warmth, friendship and patience they have showed to me.

Any way back to the story. About 3 years ago I started going to Bible study to learn more and to get a better understanding of Christianity and then about 18 months ago is when I can say that I became a Christian. I didn’t get any funny feelings, nobody told me I had changed and I certainly didn’t feel any different???? for me it was the answer to a question or more precisely what happened afterwards.

The question I asked Keith was ‘when will I know that I’m a Christian?’ The answer I got was ‘when you admit it to yourself, when you admit it to others and have a one-to-one talk with God’. Great I thought!! I mean talking to myself was easy - everybody does it - and talking to God in my head was easy, but admitting it to others and speaking out loud to God was not something I did! Well for me I have always found the best thing to do is strike while the iron's hot and that night the iron was very hot so I decided to have a go!

I just want to set the scene of what happened on the way home that evening ... I’m on my own driving home late after bible study, I’m quite excited but also apprehensive and there’s loads of things going round in my head; things like what do I say?, how do I say it?, how will he know I’m talking to him? I feel silly, how do I address him? Oh just get on with it!

So I made a decision to speak out loud in the car to God. That way I could get used to hearing my voice saying names like "God" and "Jesus" and words like "Christian" and I thought it would make it easier for me when I eventually did talk about him and this is how I started (and not very promising either):

Jeeeesus why don’t ya …….. no that sounds like I’m blaspheming!

Dear Father……. No that sounds like I’m talking to my dad!

Oh God give me ……… no no no blaspheming again!!

Oh Lord ….no that’s not right!

I mean just how do you talk to HIM? ... For me it's just like I am talking to you today. That works for me.

I got home, waited patiently for David to arrive, and then bombarded him questions. About 2 hours later, after saying a prayer, I finally shut up and now before I finally shut up this time I want to say this:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes ... and you too can have salvation if only you take one small step and really believe".