One of the challenges I experience around baptism is how to remind those gathered that the sacrament of baptism is bigger than the person being baptized that day. Though one person is receiving the mark of baptism, as a liturgical act, baptism is also a communal event in which the Spirit immerses all who are gathered more fully into a baptismal way of life. Baptism is both an extension of God’s covenant to one more person and a renewal of God’s covenant with all of God’s people. Continue reading
Tag Archives: personal and communal
A Preface to Baptism
No individual missional Christians
In a recent post, Scott McKnight sketched an outline of a lecture he gave on the Mission of God. I appreciated his attention to missional identity being rooted in the Trinity and in God’s sending. It’s a good foundation for understanding the grounding of our inclusion in God’s mission. From this foundation, Scott transitions to consider how to identify a missional Christian. It’s to these reflections on what it looks like to be a missional Christian that I have been reflecting this week. In all fairness to Scott, I have not heard the lecture nor is this post the only thing he has every written on being missional. Yet, what struck me about Scott’s sketch of God’s mission was what appears to be left out of his caricature of a missional Christian. Continue reading
Filed under missional church, responses
Muddied Prayers 