Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Grace (09/03/26)
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TITLE: Grace on a Church Board | Previous Challenge Entry
By Steve Rosas
09/10/26 -
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The most difficult issue that we faced was the determining the church’s position on baptism. One of the sponsors of the church plant was an affiliation that required believer baptism for membership. Believer baptism meant a decision to be baptized made by an older child, teen or adult to be baptized. Infant baptism was not recognized as valid by this denomination. By coincidence, 3 of the members of the board had been baptized as an older child or an adult. The other 3 were baptized as infants.
The issue that faced the temporary board was whether we should affiliate with the sponsoring denomination and require believer baptism for church membership. Prior to discussing the issue, the pastor asked us all to listen to each other with an attitude of grace. We spent an entire meeting talking about our beliefs about baptism. Each person shared our personal baptism experiences. Some had been baptized as infants but were also baptized later in life after they became believers. Some were baptized only as adults and some only as infants.
After this meeting, we agreed to spend a week seeking God’s wisdom on this issue. We agreed not to discuss the issue with the other board members during the week. Grace and unity were to be the focus of our prayers. We all acknowledged that the best-case scenario would be a 6-0 vote one way or the other and that the worst care scenario would be a 3-3 vote. In our hearts, our I suspect that our realistic expectation was a 4-2 or 5-1 vote and the hope that we could then find a way to sooth the hurt feelings of those on the losing side and find unity through discussion and negotiation.
At the end of the week, the board members e-mailed the pastor with our votes. When we convened a week later, the pastor had tears in his eyes when he announced the results. Unfortunately, it was not a 6-0 vote. It was 3-3. However, he said that this was not the worst-case scenario we thought that it would be- it was actually God’s best case scenario. The 3 members that came from an infant baptism tradition all voted to write the church bylaws requiring believer baptism for membership. They would choose between being baptized as adults or being non-member participants in the church. They did not want their beliefs to hinder the work of the church.
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