Baptism
Glory to you for oceans and lakes, for rivers and streams. Honor to you for cloud and rain, for dew and snow. Your waters are below us, around us, above us: our life is born in you. You are the fountain of resurrection.
- from the rite of Holy Baptism, Evangelical Lutheran Worship
The Lutheran Church joyfully baptizes people of any age, trusting in God’s free gift of grace given through water and the word. In the sacrament of Holy Baptism, the promises of forgiveness, life, and salvation that God makes to all people are made present and claimed for a particular person as they are washed in the waters of new life.
Christians have understood this ritual washing to be not a merely symbolic act, but one in which God’s Spirit is at work. Our old selves, individualistic and turned in upon themselves, are buried with Jesus in the tomb, and from the water we raised as new people—joined forever to Christ, to his body the Church, and oriented outward in service to the whole creation.
There is no such thing as being “baptized a Lutheran.” A person is baptized into the body of Christ that transcends time, space, and certainly denomination—in other words, all who confess Jesus as Lord. The Lutheran Church celebrates and honors the baptism of all Christians, and does not re-baptize people who come to us from other churches.
Parents who desire to have their children baptized should notify the Pastor, who will meet individually with the family to discuss the meaning, gifts, and responsibilities of baptism. Because baptism is by nature a public event in which a person is welcomed into the body of Christ, the idea of a “private baptism” makes no sense to Lutherans. All baptisms at FLC take place in the context of the Sunday liturgy of Holy Communion so that the whole church community can rejoice with the newly baptized.