Water Baptism

Among Christians, there are different perspectives on infant baptism. Some denominations and traditions (such as Episcopal, Presbyterian and Catholic) baptize infants while others (such as most Baptists) do not.

Perhaps you were baptized as an infant. How should you view that baptism? You certainly want to show respect to your parents and their viewpoints, as well as be grateful to God for any spiritual influence they had in your life. However, the Bible teaches that baptism is an action that follows conversion. So, if you have not been baptized since you have personally made a decision to follow Jesus, we encourage you to get baptized.

Absolutely, as long as they thoroughly understand what they are doing.

Although the Vineyard does not impose an age restriction, we do encourage parents to wait until their children are old enough to make a personal profession of faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. We desire to partner with parents in preparing their children for salvation and baptism. To assist parents in this process, our Children’s Ministry department has teaching booklets available on both topics. When your child is ready to be baptized, we ask parents to attend the baptism class with them. This will assist parents in reinforcing what their child learns about baptism.

At Vineyard, we do not baptize infants. Instead, we dedicate infants and children who are not yet ready to make a decision to follow Jesus for themselves and call parents to commit to raising their children to follow Christ. We do this based on the biblical model of infants being dedicated to the Lord: Samuel in the Old Testament (1 Samuel 1:21-29) and Jesus in the New Testament (Luke 2:21-24).

As long as you were born again when you were baptized, and as long as the church you were baptized at was a Christian church, then you do not need to be re-baptized.

If, however, your baptism was merely a church ritual done prior to your conversion or if the church was outside of the mainstream of Christianity, then we would encourage you to be baptized as a believer for the first time.