So at the end of part two of my testimony, I was heading for Arizona (fleeing hurricanes) with two cats and singing the song, “The Potters Hand”. I was trusting God to lead me in the right direction, because I had no idea what was ahead of me.
The Phoenix area had several United Church of Christ churches. I was looking for one that had contemporary music. I ended up attending the one closest to my apartment, but their concept of contemporary music was performing classic hymns with band. There were other things in that church that made me feel uncomfortable. I’ll talk about those at another time. This church closed down for the month of August for vacation, or maybe just to not have to pay for air conditioning in the hottest month in Phoenix.
So I went to a small Calvary chapel near my apartment and I liked it. They had good contemporary music and I felt free. I could raise my hands in worship if I felt like it, I could say “amen” if I felt like it and I didn’t feel weird.
A year after moving to Phoenix, I bought a house and I started church shopping near my new location. Again, I was looking for a contemporary service in a nondenominational church. That’s when I found First Christian Church of Phoenix known as FCC.
I loved the music and the sanctuary was really cool being a historic Frank Loyd Wright building. I attended what they called at that time the “101 Class”, which explains what the church’s beliefs were and what it was like to become a member there.
The pastor at the time, Scott Pixler, brought up baptism by immersion. I’m thinking, here we go again. And somebody else in the room asked about being baptized as a baby. I thought, at least somebody else has the same question as I do.
Then Pastor Scott said, “There’s no sprinkling in the Bible.”
Huh?
That got me to thinking because I had done so much research for my novel which takes place in first century Italy about the first century churches.
I remember reading something about baptism. So I went home and I dug up my notes and I found instructions on baptism from the early church fathers back in the 2nd century in a document called the “Didache“.
See back then, the idea was to get all new converts baptized as soon as possible. …
The Rest of the Story…
- Are you following Jesus or a church?
- Christianity vs Catholicism
- Why I Walked Away from the Democratic Party
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