“My son, 9 at the time, did a cannonball into the baptistry. Funny now but at the time, I had to refrain from drowning him.”
“My wife let me practice on her before my first baptism. I baptized her about 30 times in a freezing cold sanctuary in February. A seminary friend heard about it and prepared 30 baptism certificates for her.”
“I wore white shirt and pants. I made a mistake my wife says that a woman would never make: my white boxers had large black circles. Water made this visible to Joanie, whose mother said ‘What will you remember about today?’ Joanie said to her Mom, ‘Pastor Rick wears polka dot underwear.’”
“As a twenty something in my second interim pastorate, I was asked to baptize some folks. There were two waders in the back, I grabbed the newest looking pair, conducted the baptism, when I got back to change I realized my khakis had a wet spot on my thigh and I yelled ‘shoot those suckers leaked.’ When I came back in everyone started laughing. I had not turned the microphone off so they heard my little outburst.”
“Yeah. As a young pastor (age 23) I was serving a church in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state. After a short time, we had several people waiting for water baptism. A friend I had gone to Bible College with served a church half a block from mine—and, it had a baptistry. We made a schedule for my church to use their baptistery on a Sunday afternoon. What about the water? Will it be heated at all? My friend explained that they usually filled the baptistery with water early in the week and let it come up to room temperature. It was winter—and, he didn’t mention they don’t heat the church during the week. So, on the appointed day we all gathered for water baptism. I was the first one into the water…and…the water was so cold I could hardly speak. The first candidate for water baptism was a logger who was rough—and worked in the woods. When he stepped into the water he shouted, ‘WHAT ARE YOU F’ING TRYING TO DO? KILL ME?’”
“At my very first church job, one of the first baptisms finished with the guy climbing out of the pool wearing a soaking wet white baptism ‘robe’ that was see through. We told people to wear clothes underneath. All he had on underneath was a pair of black thong underwear!”
“Had a young girl climb into the tank, turn and look at the congregation, and then start screaming that she wanted out.”
“My first experience baptizing in the Jordan River I did not anticipate the awkwardness of wearing a long robe and being in very shallow water. Somehow I fell forward on top of him in front of everybody. Probably not how it went with John the Baptist. The next 10 people in line were pretty nervous, but I got my stuff together.”
“Used my chest waders and I was unaware there was a hole in them. Filled up and I couldn’t get out of baptistry. Had to go down to my skivvies to get out.”
RELATED: Elevation Church Sees Nearly 600 Baptisms in One Weekend
“First time using waders in a baptism, I leaned down too far and all the water came rushing in. Preaching in a sopping-wet suit was an…experience. I’m going to stick to just changing into jeans and a T-shirt for baptisms from now on.”
“My buddy is a firefighter. He brought a co-worker named Mike to church. Mike was rough. Mike’s first time at church he texted his buddy from the parking lot, ‘What the f–k do I do now?’ Then Jesus saved him and Mike was ready to be baptized. Mike showed up late on baptism Sunday and asked if he could play a Sarah Mclachlan song. [I said] No Mike. ‘How about Journey?’ [Again I said] No Mike, we are doing our normal songs. When he gave his testimony I was so relieved that he said no profanities. Then, just before he got in the water, Mike drops his pants and slipped off his shirt (those are his boxers). It happened so fast I didn’t know what to do. We just dunked him. Later he told me he wanted to be baptized the same way he was born—naked before the Lord.”