This coming Sunday I’m looking forward to a book signing at my congregation. It’s really a celebration of the result of a long process and a lot of work. How great to share it with the supportive people who gave me sabbatical time to work on my first draft.
Preparing for this event reminds me of how long my book’s topic has been a passion for me. I remember sitting in our small camper-trailer at Green Lake, Wisconsin many years ago writing a proposal for a master’s thesis in theology. I was excited at the time because I’d found in Dietrich Bonhoeffer a spiritual guide for issues around baptism, and now I was suggesting a topic with him and baptism as the focus. How little did I realize that beginning would have many surprising effects on my ministry for years to come, including the book that I’ll sign on Sunday, Water for Your Soul.
I suppose the stirrings of a concern for baptismal spirituality began when I discovered how apparently little this sacrament meant to some. Well, maybe that’s not fair. But very early in my ministry as a young pastor I was finding myself with requests for baptism by people I didn’t expect to approach me. I expected to be approached mostly by folks I served in my rural Wisconsin parish – the members, church-goers, believers, Christians, worshipers I saw on a regular basis. But just as often I found the Sacrament of Baptism being requested by parents I had never met before for reasons I wasn’t quite sure of. Sometimes they were members who didn’t worship (an interesting reality, of course); other times they had even less connection to the church, even just passing through.
What I discovered is that lots of people had some interest in baptism – the day, the event, the family gathering, the ceremony, the “insurance” – but fewer were enthused about the Christian life. It was like baptism was the end or goal: you get it done and that’s it. I had trouble big-time with that. I was convinced, and still am, that baptism is really a beginning.
So back to Bonhoeffer. I did my research and wrote my thesis for Luther Seminary (St. Paul, Minnesota), but that was just the beginning. I prepared pre-baptismal studies for parents of children to be baptized, and even sold these “learning packets” through an enterprising company for a time. That was an exciting experience in being published too, but I thought it was even more exciting for what it would mean for the church. Not much baptismal education was being done at the time. Now there was a tool, which I still use in a modified form, which gives parents an extra chance to study, think and pray about this extraordinary event for their child – and what it can mean for them too. I continue to love these conversations, especially when this new baptismal reality “clicks” for them.
But that’s just part of the story on the way to Water for Your Soul. More next time….
