Posts Tagged ‘baptism’
2009 in review
Posted on: December 22, 2009
- In: my life | thoughts
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So I was trying to remember 2009 so that my last post of the year chould be a review of sorts…but I really couldn’t remember anything.
So then I went through my facebook photo albums and the ones that stand out the most are (in no particular order):
1. day in the park/beach – in Jan, Brett decided that for his birthday celebrations he was going to help out with a take-the-kids-from-an-orphanage-out-for-the-day-to-the-beach-and-love-them-day thing…and he invited people to go and help out, and i went, and it was awesomtastic. then in april and again in november some people from our church organised a take-the-kids-from-an-orphanage-out-for-the-day-to-the-park-and-love-them-day thing and once again i decided to join in. and again it was awesomtastic. i’m not the most kid-friendly person in the world…like, i would suck at being a kindergarten teacher, but i really do enjoy spending time with kids and just loving on them and making them feel wanted and loved and adored and listened to and whatever, even if it was for one day atleast they got to feel special.
2. vision k/youth/scripture union camp – as i said, i would suck at being a kindergarten teacher. and i would probably suck at being a middle/high school teacher as well, but if i had to choose, i would go for the middle/high school age group. so i’ve talked a bit about my exploits with vision k this year, and i may have mentioned the scripture union leadership camp as well – can’t remember, but yea, both of those and the youth group at my church have been highlights in my life this year. i truly do enjoy hanging out with youth and finding out where they are and if possible helping in their journey towards adulthood. i’ve been through the teenage years myself, and sometimes i still act like i’m going through them, and i remember how hard it was for me, so any help i can give someone else…
3. turning 25 – i liked turning 25. scary, yet…super cool. like i felt like i was finally an adult in a lot of ways. turning 26 is not scary, but it feels kinda sucky, don’t know if i’m going to enjoy it much.
4. namrock/baptism – so wrote a lot on namrock, and wrote about getting baptised. and definite highlights they were.
5. worship team – lots of memories. lots of laughs. lots of growing. thankfulness.
6. http://tsholo.wordpress.com/2009/10/02/worship-setlist-september-27-2009/ – i’ve been to PE quite a few times, and i always…well, i guess hate is a strong word but…well, it’s the right word. i always hated it. i was ok with like 2 days, but after that i was ready to leave. this year my dad moved to PE, then my sister also moved there. at the end of the year my lil bro is also moving there. so it will just be me and my mom in the western cape (sadness). but yea, the visit in september was so awesomtastic, i didn’t want to leave. and i’m looking forward to visiting again first week of next year…and throughout 2010. PE Love!
7. flatmating – had a super awesomtastic flatmate this year. i learned a lot from her and i totally appretiate the flatmate she was and all the talks and all the laughs and discovering “The OC” together and our late night dvd’ing and sms’ing each other from the other side of the wall and the sharing and all of it, it’s been great Lindz, will miss sharing a flat with you.
8. music and friends – the south african music scene is wow! and it’s even better when it’s live, and it’s shared with friends. new altum, flat stanley, just jinjer, aking, gravity wins again, straatligkinders, irvine, lua union, the lottery tickets, heldervue, black markets riots, 3rd world spectator, saint fearless, the rescue, tree63, the arrows, bed on bricks – just off the top of my head. memorable moments also include: being kidnapped and forced to go to the beach at 2 am when i was working the next morning, sneaking into the botanical gardens after it was closed and having a photo shoot after making a 20 minute video of us talking nonsense, TEAM AWESOMTASTIC, awesomtastic enGAGE dinners at Ginos and awesomtastic cricket watching at Ginos, SUPER inappropriate conversations and the birth of SOKs…and so much more…I really thank God for friends!
and then two more not in the photo albums, just to round it off
9. blogging – nablopomo(?) was really good for my blogging…blogging everyday for a month is not easy, totally respect those who do it year round. good and challenging. blogging has been so good for me though. it’s been a place for me to just spill what’s in my head onto something else and just get it out of my system so that it doesn’t take over. so thank you for reading.
10. God – lots of up and downs, lots of screaming and shouting, lots of late night pop-corn and cookies and ice-cream (He loves those), lots of laughing, lots of reminders, lots of fulfilled promises, lots of pouring on of LOVE, lots of us time, too much ingnoring from my side, lots of forgiveness, lots of convictions, lots of happiness and joy, more love and more reminders, lots of blessings, lots of breathe, lots of guidance, lots of mercy and grace, more love, lots of comforting, lots of more reminders for/to hope, lots of everything. Everything and LOVE!
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and one more that had nothing to do with me but stands out this year was the wedding of the fish and TBV…read about it here.
He speaks…
Posted on: June 22, 2009
This is part 1 of 3 in my series on Lesson Learned at NamRock
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Wednesday, June 10, 2009
We are on our way to NamRock and as we pass through Mulmesberry (sp?) I think “oh hey, this is where Marc and Wil and Ernst and Kevin are from…hmmm…no work today…oh shoot, I forgot to check in my work…oh crap, they are supposed to test that stuff, how are they going to get to it…oh crap…I’m gonna be so fired when I get back next week…” and from there the seed is planted. Thoughts like these crept into my head, get settled there and make a comfortable home for themselves. Seriously I dwelled on these thoughts until I started to crash… Lunchtime we stopped at Springbok…I already had a headache and my body was tense from the stress and I was freak’n hungry…seriously hungry…and everyone was taking soooo long to buy food for the next two days…and I was getting ready to scream…or kill someone…or something. Anyway, eventually we end up going to lunch and I ate and I was full and I felt better…but the worrying and stressing was still there…and the crash came.
I just told everyone that I was going to try and sleep, so I put my headphones on and shut the world out. I put the song “My God is Amazing” by Surrender Band on repeat and tried to listen to it…but nothing was going in. I was freaking out. I had let the stress and worry go on too long and now I couldn’t snap out of it. I lay there for a while…just lay there…and tried not to think – impossible task.
The thing is, I’m sure that none of the people in the car with me that day would even guess that I was stressing, not even Lindri knew I was stressing until I told her about it a couple of days later. I stress on the inside…I don’t let it show…I go on with life pretending it’s not happening. Which, I think, makes it worse cos I let it fester without an outside influence to put it into perspective.
Anyway, at some point the car starts slowing down and I think we are coming to another rest-stop, but as I lift my head I realize that we are in the middle of nowhere. I take my headphones off just in time to hear someone say “Are you slowing down, or is it slowing down on it’s own?” and Stephen answers “I’m not doing anything”. I ask what’s happening and find out we are out of petrol. Great…one more thing…just what we need! The guys say we should push the car to Karasburg, I disagree…seriously? push? to Karasburg? yea we see the town’s lights, but we don’t really know how far we are. I’d rather just walk there and walk back. Lindri’s suggestion: Let’s pray. So we do…or they do…and I just assume that God will provide a way anyway, he already knows our needs so why pray…and I immediately get convicted about the way I take God’s provision for granted. I just assume he will provide (which he does) and I don’t ask…but he tells us to ask, not because he doesn’t already know, but because he wants us to talk to him, to go to him with our needs. So inwardly I just say “Daddy, obviously you didn’t bring us to Namibia to leave us out in the middle of nowhere…and as you know, I’m a girl so I’m not going to push the car to Karasburg…so please make another way. Amen” and as I open my eyes I see lights approaching.
The lights turned out to be an ambulance, who though they were on their way to take someone to the hospital, stopped for us and gave Stephen and Lind a lift into town to buy petrol and brought them back. While they were gone I managed to get some unwinding in…I stopped trying not to stress, and instead let Him clear my head of all those negative thoughts… and that is how I managed to stop stressing (thanks also to the musical stylings of Mr Durant).
When the other two came back, we spent a few minutes outside looking up at the stars in awe at just how AWESOMELY AMAZING He is. And I thought “he *is* BIG enough to handle my work stuff when I get back”. So yea, I think that was part of the plan. He wanted to make sure I don’t go into NamRock with all that worry and all that stress…and had we not run out of petrol we would not have stopped there and just sat in amazement at his display…
He really does care!
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Monday, June 15, 2009
I decided long before NamRock that I was going to take the plunge…as in get baptised…I even asked Lindri to be the baptist/baptiser/i-don’t-know-what-they-are-called, but as the days crept closer I started having doubts. The decision to get baptised was not made lightly. I researched, I asked people, I thought and pondered and prayed before I made that decision…which should have been a relatively easy decision to make I think solely because Joshua Davidson commands baptism and that should be enough for it to happen but it took me a loooong time to decide to do it, and after making the decision it took about a year for it to actually happen. For some reason it scared me…couldn’t tell you why. Throughout the camp I kept telling Lindri that I’m thinking of backing out.
Baptism is symbolic right? So to do the act without the inner-something is really just putting on a show. And I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t want to just go there and get baptised just to say I’m baptised, I wanted to make sure that my heart was in-line with my actions. That when I took that dip it was reflective of where my heart is.
Anyway, so the day finally dawns and I’m pretty sure I’m gonna back out. Then we go on a little hike ‘up the valley’ and do some free worship which was so awesome. And at some point I go a few feet away from everyone else and decide to just do some praying and so I tell God that I’m thinking of backing out because I don’t know where my heart is…and I’m all “if you really want this to happen today, then tell me so”…I wait…and nothing! So I walk back to join everyone. As I get there the singing stops and a couple of people come up to share testimony-type-stuff and then Pieter comes up and says “if anyone is interested in being baptised today, please speak to Jancie…” and I’m all ok, cool I’ll do it.
So I got baptised…because He said so. And I did some soul/heart searching before taking the plunge just to make sure I was really doing it for the right reasons. And no, there were no doves or audible voices, but I’m sure God was pleased. So the decision is made, and now the walk begins/continues…and this time I’ve got witnesses to keep me accountable.
Oh and just before I actually got baptised, Kev (I think) says “are you sure you really want to do this? you do know what this means right?” and i’m all “what?” and he says “i don’t know” and Val (I think) says “it means you are giving up your will for his, so if it’s his will for you to be single for life you have to do it” and we all laughed…but yea, that’s what it meant for me…giving up my plans, laying down my wants, for the beautiful plan he has…even if it means being single for life (but hopefully it’s not).
And thanks to Natalie for the talk that evening…was a blessing and a huge encouragement…
Baptism and confusion
Posted on: April 15, 2008
This one is super long so I understand if you don’t read it all. Although I probably won’t blog again for another week so you can read it piece by piece over a week.
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Ok, so after 12 years of being a Christian and successfully avoiding the topic of fasting (except world vision’s 30 hr famine which I did 3 years), it caught up with me this year – big time. I couldn’t go anywhere without someone talking about it. So I tried fasting for a day and it was good. Then I tried it for 3 days, and failed the second day. Then this (really cool) chick from church named Lindri (fka Isa Bella) suggested we do it together cos she was also struggling to do it alone – so we tried it and yay, 3 days with no solid food (Friday, Saturday, Sunday – last meal Thursday night, broke the fast on Monday morn). Just living on water, juice, coffee, tea, and coke. I’m so sick of water right now – I don’t want to ever see it again – at least until I go on my next fast. Yep, I’ve decided to make a semi-routine thing, instead of a once-off thing. I haven’t decided though on how often its gonna happen. But yea, it was definitely good. The reason I mention it is because Monday I was so out of it. I couldn’t eat cos my body didn’t like food anymore (yea, just after 3 days – didn’t think it was possible either) and I was super drained and could barely concentrate – so yea that’s the background to the state of my brain when I wrote the email to Brett (a little later).
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Next topic I need to deal with: baptism. What is it all about? Why do people do it? Do I need to do it? FYI: I was baptised as a kid, when I was 5 but to tell the truth it meant nothing to me. It was something you did because people who go to church did it. I don’t even think my parents knew what it was about.
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I sent the following email to the youth pastor of vineyard – there was a baptism on Sunday so he was talking about it on Sunday evening so naturally I had a few questions on it, so here it is:
Hi Brett,
I’m pretty sure this email will not make sense cos as I’m writing it the only parts of my brain that are awake are the ones controlling the breathing and the muscles that keep the eyes open – everything else has pretty much shut down. So excuse my…stupid-ness.
So on the topic of baptism: I know the Bible says we should get baptized (the great commission, don’t know if it says so anywhere else) but it doesn’t say when does it? For instance if you were baptized as a kid (infant baptism) why do you have to get baptized again? I also don’t quite get why Jesus got baptized. Oh and on the great commission part, you know how John said that he baptizes with water but someone will come after him who will baptize with the holy spirit (I think – not during the great commission but I think it was when he started being John the baptist), well someone (don’t remember who) told me that since we are baptized with the holy spirit then we don’t need to be baptized with water. Not saying I believed them but…thinking…
Maybe I just don’t understand the meaning of baptism. Isn’t it a public display/declaration of your decision to die to self and live to Christ? If so, isn’t the way you live your life public display enough? Oh maybe not cos the way I live my life doesn’t always reflect dying to self and living for Christ.
Maybe what I’m asking is, do I have to be baptized again (or at all actually) and if so why? And if not, why not since the bible says we should –or did it?
Sorry, don’t really know what I’m asking. As I said, I’m brain-dead today.
Signed,
Confused.
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Anyway, he hasn’t responded yet but if/when he does I’ll update. I decided to do a little study on it while I wait for his response so I reached for my trusty bible, concordance and bible study notes and this is the conclusions I’ve drawn (probably wrong, feel free to add your opinion reader):
The word baptism pops up for the first time in the bible in the new testament starting with John the baptist’s ministry. His ministry was all about repentance, and water baptism was symbolic of cleansing yourself of your sin when you repent – being washed and made clean or as they put it: water baptism symbolises not the removal or dirt from the body but the pledge of a good conscience toward God. John said Jesus would come and baptise with a baptism of the Spirit and fire. Apparently the fire is symbolic of judgement and there was also the tounges of fire when the spirit came down at pentecost (Acts 2), so the prophecy was partly fulfilled at Pentecost when the Spirit came down. Baptism after Jesus (post the resurrection) was symbolic of dying with him, being buried with him, and rising again with him – sharing in his fate, so that we might share in his resurrection and eternityness (yea, I know that’s not a word). So John’s baptism was more preparatory for the “real” baptism (the Spirit and fire one) – although there were some people in Acts (I think) who got the water baptism after the Spirit one.
In sort-of conclusion, what I’m getting is baptism was a way of publicly declaring your faith and that you had repented of your sins and were a follower of the Christ. Anyway, another note put it this way: Baptism is an outward sign of an inward work of Grace.
In real conclusion, I found 4 reasons why Jesus himself was baptised. 1. to identify with humanity; 2. inception of his ministry; 3. to fulfil all righteousness (something about it symbolising consencration – being set apart for God); and 4. as an example to his disciples. The last one tells me that if I’m gonna call myself a follower of Christ then I need to get baptised.
In seriously-totally-real conclusion, I need to get baptised because the Bible tells me I should, and as Brett often says, that should be reason enough for me to do it.
Now the question is when? And also which church? Cos I really think I wanna do it at a river (like John did it), but my home church only does it in a swimming pool, and I think they only do it easter weekend which means yet another year to change my mind, whereas with Vineyard I think they would do it in a river, although the last one was at the beach – but technically I am part of the Nazarene church so maybe I should do it there. But then again baptism has nothing do to with denomination does it? Hmmm…more questions!
