Baptism breakdown

Sunday 21/06/09

What an amazing night. What an incredible example of Jesus Christ changing lives through His grace. Sometimes I encounter the kids of Illuminate, ICONS and MAD youth and I think they are simply unstoppable. There is an infectious joy about them, something that is part age, part personality and part (mostly) the way that the Lord affects people, especially when they encounter Him for the very first time.

So we had some baptisms tonight at The Journey Uniting Church. Two guys from ED, Josh Bell and Nathan Pycroft, that I was lucky enough to get to know on our recent Easter Camp and two of our Illuminators, Laura Graham and Rob Ross-Naylor. At least fifteen other Illuminators were on hand to witness this and I don’t mind admitting there were nights 18 months or so ago when we barely hit that number for Illuminate. A whole bunch of our core people were on hand to support and encourage Laura and Rob as they dedicated their life to Jesus.

The pastor of The Journey Uniting Church, Andy Hogarth, had some words for each kid getting baptised. For Laura, that she was a woman of great faith who would encourage and grow the faith of others through her own. For Josh, that he was a man, much like his namesake Joshua, that would come under the wing of great leaders and be mentored and grow in this fashion and that his family would be affected by this. For Nathan, again that he would have the ear of leaders like his namesake Nathan and be an encourager in the manner of Barnabas. Finally, for Robert, that he would be a man who would change the spiritual temperature. He is also a charismatic man with great leadership qualities.

All these kids are potentially future leaders. Everyone’s path is uncertain to those on earth, only our heavenly Father above truly knows where we are headed. I’ve been around enough young people to know that as much as I love sowing in to them and can pray my guts out, it will ultimately be their relationship with Christ - the depth and weight of that on their soul - and their personal character and that of their friends that sees them through to eternal life.

Life is too hard to do on our own.