Part of my responsibility in the service was to introduce the church to the visitors, and especially to answer these two questions: What is an Evangelical? and Why do we baptise?<\/p>\n
How do you introduce evangelicalism to unbelievers (some Roman Catholics, others atheists or\u00c2\u00a0agnostics), who have no prior knowledge. How do you introduce baptism simply to them? The other challenge is that being Reformed Baptist, my understanding of baptism might slightly differ from most evangelicals here. I did my best, trying to articulate these clearly so that every one could understand.<\/p>\n
I am reproducing my notes below (in French), and would love any comments on how these may be improved in the future. I did not read them word for word, but these will give you the essence of what was said:<\/p>\n
Qui sommes nous?<\/p>\n
Nous sommes protestants, et h\u00c3\u00a9ritiers de la R\u00c3\u00a9forme protestante du 16eme si\u00c3\u00a8cle. Etre \u00c3\u00a9vang\u00c3\u00a9lique veut dire entre autre que nous croyons que la Bible est dans sa totalit\u00c3\u00a9 inspir\u00c3\u00a9e de Dieu. c’est \u00c3\u00a0 dire que bien qu’\u00c3\u00a9crite par des hommes, elle trouve son origine en Dieu lui m\u00c3\u00aame qui a form\u00c3\u00a9 et guid\u00c3\u00a9s les auteurs bibliques de telle fa\u00c3\u00a7on que ce qu’ils ont \u00c3\u00a9crit est la Parole de Dieu. L’une des implications pratiques de cela est que la Bible est sans erreurs, et qu’elle est notre seul guide et norme en mati\u00c3\u00a8re de Doctrine et de vie. Ainsi, nous croyons que les miracles qui y sont d\u00c3\u00a9crits sont v\u00c3\u00a9ridiques, comme par exemple la naissance de Christ d’une vierge.<\/p>\n
L’autre point essentiel de notre identit\u00c3\u00a9 \u00c3\u00a9vang\u00c3\u00a9lique est que nous proclamons que personne ne peut \u00c3\u00aatre sauv\u00c3\u00a9 par ses propres efforts. Seul Dieu, dans sa gr\u00c3\u00a2ce, sauve, \u00c3\u00a0 travers l’oeuvre et la personne de J\u00c3\u00a9sus Christ. J\u00c3\u00a9sus Christ est le chemin, la v\u00c3\u00a9rit\u00c3\u00a9 et la vie, et nul ne vient au P\u00c3\u00a8re que par lui. C’est sa mort sur la croix et sa r\u00c3\u00a9surrection qui nous a ouvert le chemin au P\u00c3\u00a8re. Le seul moyen d’\u00c3\u00aatre sauv\u00c3\u00a9 c’est de mettre sa foi en Christ, c’est \u00c3\u00a0 dire de mettre en lui tout notre confiance, en reconnaissant notre propre inhabilit\u00c3\u00a9 de le faire par nous m\u00c3\u00aame.<\/p>\n
Pourquoi baptisons nous?<\/p>\n
Le bapt\u00c3\u00aame et la Sainte C\u00c3\u00a8ne sont les seules ordonnances que le Christ a institu\u00c3\u00a9 et qu’il nous a laiss\u00c3\u00a9. Ces ordonnances n’ont rien de magique. Ce sot des signes qu’il nous a laiss\u00c3\u00a9 pour nous rappeler visuellement ce qu’est l’\u00c3\u00a9vangile et ce qu’il a fait pour nous. Ainsi, le bapt\u00c3\u00aame symbolise pour la personne baptis\u00c3\u00a9e son union avec Christ, le pardon de ses p\u00c3\u00a9ch\u00c3\u00a9s, sa purification. Mais le bapt\u00c3\u00aame manifeste aussi notre r\u00c3\u00a9ponse \u00c3\u00a0 la gr\u00c3\u00a2ce de Dieu. Pour cette raison, seuls ceux qui professent leur repentance envers Dieu, ainsi que la foi et l’ob\u00c3\u00a9issance au Seigneur J\u00c3\u00a9sus Christ peuvent se porter candidats au bapt\u00c3\u00aame. Nous ne baptisons pas les nouveaux n\u00c3\u00a9s. C’est cette d\u00c3\u00a9marche que Magali a voulu entreprendre, en t\u00c3\u00a9moignage de l’oeuvre que Dieu a fait dans sa vie.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Part of my responsibility in the service was to introduce the church to the visitors, and especially to answer these two questions: What is an Evangelical? and Why do we baptise? How do you introduce evangelicalism to unbelievers (some Roman Catholics, others atheists or\u00c2\u00a0agnostics), who have no prior knowledge. How do you introduce baptism simply … Continue reading “A baptismal service (2)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ministry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.erdurand.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}