Emphasis Preaching Journal

Pastors sometimes get requests that cannot be fulfilled. A woman living about forty miles away from a particular pastor called him and asked if he would baptize her young son. The pastor asked her if she had a church home where she lived? "No," she said, "I don't go to church. But my family lives near your church so I want to get my son baptized there."

He then asked her if her family had a church in the area where he lived. "No," she said, "they don't go to church anywhere, either." The pastor explained to her that baptism is a sacred act in which both the parents and the church make a commitment to God to live in such a way as to instruct this child in the faith and in the ways of the church. The pastor said that if he baptized this child, he felt he would be taking part in a pretense because she had no intention in following through with the promises she would be asked to make. He declined and told her he could not do the baptism.

At that point she became very irate with the pastor and accused him of not being a good pastor or a Christian. The pastor, however, slept with a clear conscience that night because he believes that baptism is too important to be treated so lightly and casually.