Baptism - The Musical

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 01 June 2008 21:28:46

Third Party and her friend had chosen a short list of songs for their baptism this evening and we got through most of them, and so you could have given this evening the title "Baptism - The Musical". Alternatively you could call it 4 chavs and a Baptism for reasons which will become clear.

This evening was cool, but as with most things in our church just an ickle different. The testimonies were quite moving and the sermon was ok. The baptism itself was moving, as these things always are, and Third Party got given an interesting "word from the Lord" relating to the fact she had always been a bit wild, but was now going to be wild for God. (Note this is the type of word which scares the heck out of a mum wanting a quiet life).

Besides the obvious of my daughter getting baptised the most moving thing for me though was seeing four of her friends there, who had obviously decided to go outside their comfort zones to support her and were absolutely smashing. They were, to differing levels, chavs and I knew enough about them to know they don't have easy lives. Three of them were: friend we took to Greenbelt (who some of you will be familiar with) and J & P who I asked to pray about earlier in the week. These are not "churched" kids, but they went and they basically engaged with the proceedings to support their friends. One lovely bit was when people were invited to go up and pray for the girls, they went up and said "is it ok to just say good luck", which they did. They nipped out for a fag break during one of the hymns, but otherwise were well behaved and focused.

Afterwards they came back to the flat and we sat and talked. It emerged one of the lads had experienced something during the service, which was cool. The others were actually quite respectful of what had been going on and chatted about it sensibly with us. What became clear was quite how alien church is to people who have no experience of it, and how much of the prejudice they had previously expressed was as a result of ignorance not malice. The standing up and sitting down bit they found particularly confuddling, but as I say they went through that for their friend, who had had the guts to invite them.

So tonight, I am very proud of my daughter and her friends who managed to keep it very real this evening. Oh and am thankful to God for bringing her this far on the journey.