South Main Baptist Church

South Main is a Baptist church, and baptism plays a special role in how we express our faith and our commitment to God and to each other.

Baptism is an enacted parable. Symbolically, it shows that a person has turned from the old way of life, been resurrected with Christ, and raised to walk a new life. It is the tradition of our Baptist faith to baptize a person by briefly, but fully, immersing the person in water. This chosen method is based on our reading of the Gospel narrative, which uses the Greek verb baptizo to describe Jesus’ baptism. The word means “to dip” or “to immerse”. More importantly, baptism is an act set out for us to follow from Jesus’ example (in Matthew 3:13) and from the instructions that he gave to his disciples (in Matthew 28:18-20).

While there are other modes of baptism that can symbolize the saving work of Jesus, we believe that immersion in water—following an informed personal decision to follow Christ—draws this picture best, and marks this decision in the believer’s life most effectively.

Finally, we celebrate baptism as part of our public worship because it connects, in an open and undeniable way, the new believer with the congregation, the family of God in this place.

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