Pages

Tuesday, July 09, 2013

So, what's a Baptist, then mister?

Had a lovely time this afternoon, speaking to a Primary School class on the differences between  Baptists and the Church of England. I started off by contrasting the leadership structure of the CofE with our own. Their 'Supreme Governor' is the Queen and they have Archbishops, Bishops, Priests and Deacons, etc., while we simply have elders, one of whom is the pastor, and deacons. I told them that the Prime Minister appoints the Archbishop of Canterbury and other senior clergy, while in Baptist churches, church members elect their own leaders. We discussed the difference between Christening and believer's baptism, why I don't wear clerical garb, the Baptist approach to the Lord's Supper, and how our church buildings reflect our differing emphases. 

Then came questions from the floor. The children asked: How old Jesus was when he was baptised? If Jesus was at God's right hand, who was at his left? How many people I had baptised? How old do you have to be before being baptised? How old was I when I was baptised? Had I been to any other Baptist Churches? What religion was Jesus? Do we eat food other than bread and wine at the Lord's Table? Those and many more questions kept me on my toes.

The class kindly gave me a round of applause at the end and I clapped them back for all their brilliant questions. 

4 comments:

Jonathan Hunt said...

So, thou hairy tick, why dost being a Baptist preclude clerical garb???

Guy Davies said...

Cos Baptists believe in the priesthood of all believers and clerical garb is a relic of papist priestcraft. Why d'you ask?

Jonathan Hunt said...

Well, because some Baptists wear dog collars.

Guy Davies said...

Well, they shouldn't.