Baptism is a public declaration of a person’s love and commitment to be a follower of Jesus Christ. At Spruce Grove Alliance Church we believe that anyone who has repented of their sins and have put their faith in Jesus should be baptized. Baptism does not make a person a Christian, it shows that they already are one. Baptism is an outward expression of an inward experience. After a person has made the conscious decision to follow Jesus, the natural step is to obey Jesus’ command and be baptized. We call this “Believer’s Baptism.”
The method of baptism that we practice at Spruce Grove Alliance Church is full immersion baptism. We believe that this is the model taught for us in scripture. The word “baptize” literally means “to immerse” underwater and it is a beautiful picture of the burial and resurrection of Jesus. When a person enters the water of baptism they are putting on display what Jesus has done for them in attaining their salvation. They are making visible an invisible reality that has happened to them on the inside. They are proclaiming that they are dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Baptism takes our personal faith and makes it an objective experience. It announces to everyone that we have surrendered to a new authority in our lives. We have pledged a new allegiance. We have taken a stand. Such an act not only lifts our faith out of the unstable realms of our own subjectivity, it also enlists us for the cause of Christ, openly joining the ranks of those who believe in Christ.
We do not baptize infants but wait until they are old enough to express their own personal faith in Jesus Christ. We do however have baby dedications, following the example of Mary and Joseph bringing baby Jesus to the temple (Luke 2:21-40). This is a way that parents can give thanks to God for the precious gift of life that God has given them and commit themselves to raising their child in the love of God.