The United Methodist Church forms disciples of Jesus Christ who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections.

Love Boldly: We passionately love God and, like Jesus, embrace and include people of every age, nation, race, gender, and walk of life. (Matthew 22:37-39 | John 13:34-35)

Serve Joyfully:  With the heart of Christ, we journey alongside the most vulnerable among us, offering care and compassion with joy. (Psalm 100:1 | Nehemiah 8:10 | John 13:14-15 | 1 Peter 4:10)

Lead Courageously: Following Jesus’ example, we resist and dismantle all systems of evil, injustice, and oppression, striving for peace, justice, and reconciliation. (Joshua 1:9 | Ephesians 6:10)

Baptism and United Methodists

Baptism is a sacrament.

The word sacrament comes from a Latin word for vow or promise and a Greek word for mystery. Sacraments are ritual practices that connect us to the mystery of God’s love and grace and call us to respond in faith. While there are many ways of opening to the love and grace of God, United Methodists recognize two rituals as sacraments: baptism and Holy Communion. These are the only two practices that Jesus specifically commands in the Gospels (see Matthew 28:19-20; Luke 22:14-21). Baptism is our welcome to the family of Christ; Holy Communion sustains and nourishes us on our journey of faith.

What happens when we are baptized?

In baptism, we acknowledge and celebrate the grace of God, freely offered to us before we were even aware of it. We confess our sin, accept membership in the family of Christ, and vow to trust in and serve Jesus Christ as our Lord. Baptism is the outward and visible sign of our covenant (holy agreement) with God to accept God’s gifts of freedom and power and to grow in faith through the constant efforts of the Holy Spirit and the lifelong practice of prayer, study, service, witness, and worship. In The United Methodist Church, baptism is a communal celebration; the congregation vows to nurture and support those being baptized—adults or infants. These United Methodist services are called Baptismal Covenants in recognition of the sacred nature of our holy agreements with God, as individuals and as a community of faith.

Why and how is water used at baptism?

Water cleanses and purifies. It is necessary for all life. The use of water reminds us to be
grateful for all that God has already done for us—in the waters of the Flood and the promise of the rainbow; in the escape of the Israelites from Egypt and their survival in the wilderness; and in Jesus’ baptism, life, death, and resurrection—all reminders that we need to be washed and renewed, purified by God’s love and by the ongoing work and power of the Holy Spirit.

Sprinkling, pouring, and immersion are all acceptable uses of water for baptism in The United Methodist Church. Whatever method is used, baptism is made in the name of “The Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”—the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of our life and faith. Then representatives of the community of faith—the pastor and perhaps parents, sponsors, and congregational leaders—lay hands on the baptized person’s head and offer this powerful blessing and call to action: “The Holy Spirit work within you, that being born through water and the Spirit, you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ” (from The United Methodist Hymnal, copyright 1989 by The United Methodist Publishing House).

At what age should someone be baptized?

In The United Methodist Church, as in many other Christian traditions, baptism may occur at any age. The practice of infant baptism is supported by biblical authority (see Acts 2:38-39; 16:15, 33). We enter this world as imperfect beings in need of salvation (that is, we need to be freed from our imperfection by God’s love and power). When infants are presented for baptism, parents, sponsors, and the entire community of faith pledge to surround the children with Christian nurture and teaching as the children prepare to profess and confirm their faith for themselves (often as young teens in a service called confirmation). Young people and adults who have never been baptized and who wish to join the family of faith and The United Methodist Church may profess their faith, receive instruction in the beliefs and traditions of The United Methodist Church, and be baptized into membership.

How do christening and dedication compare with baptism?

The term christening has sometimes been understood as a ritual for naming a child, but it is the same service as baptism. While the child’s name is spoken in the Baptismal Covenant service, the focus is on the work and power of God’s love. A service of dedication is the action a family takes on behalf of a child. It is not practiced in The United Methodist Church. Baptism is a celebration and acknowledgment of the loving action God has already taken and continues to take on behalf of all creation.

Can I (or should I) be re-baptized?

Baptism is recognition of God’s gracious love already at work in our lives. God’s grace endures, and God’s promises are never broken. The United Methodist Church recognizes the baptism of most other Christian traditions.

We sometimes fail to keep our promises to God and need to renew the commitment made at our baptism. The United Methodist Church offers opportunities for reaffirmation of baptismal vows at significant crossroads of individual lives and the life of the church. These may include confirmation, entry into membership in a United Methodist congregation, marriages, funerals, celebration of the baptism of Jesus, Easter, and Pentecost. At these services, we renew our vows of love and service and are encouraged to remember our baptism and be thankful.

It’s all about God’s Grace

When we talk about “God’s love,” we are trying to express our understanding of who God is. That’s hard because God is love, beyond anything that words can describe. Yet words are the symbols we use to communicate, so we struggle and fumble and use imperfect words to talk about perfection.

Love

God is love, and love can exist only in relationship. This gives us a glimpse of God as the One who cares, who creates, and who seeks to be with the creation.

What is love? First Corinthians 13:4-13 helps define it for us:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. . . . For we know only in part . . .; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. . . . Then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

This is the love that is God—God’s love—in and for all of creation. God’s love empowers us to be the best people we can be. It freely gives all of itself for our welfare and longs for but does not depend on our love in return. This is love we can count on, no matter what. As Christians, we know the truth of this love that is God through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Christ is Emmanuel—God with us—in his selfless human life on earth and in the ongoing presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

Grace

As United Methodists, we have a rich tradition of language for the love that is God, drawn from Scripture, formed in the writings of John Wesley, and reinterpreted in each generation. Wesley wrote of God’s love as grace.

Before we explore his language, however, let’s look at the word grace. It is the root for the words graceful and gracious. When we say people, animals, or things are graceful, we usually mean that they have a gentle, powerful beauty with lines or movement that flow smoothly and easily in the world. When we describe people as gracious, we mean that they are welcoming, kind, patient, warm, and calm in the face of adversity. Grace is a word for God’s love that includes all of these qualities: powerful beauty, fluid movement in and through the world, patience with our shortcomings, welcome and kindness when we turn again to God’s calm persistence in seeking us out.

In the language of grace developed by John Wesley, the journey of faith offers us many different ways to experience God’s grace.

Prevenient Grace

First, we believe that God’s grace is fully and freely available to all people. This is prevenient grace, the grace that comes before we are even aware that it exists. This is the love of God that called all of creation into being and that continues to reach out in love for relationship with humanity. This is the grace that freely chooses to love us first with no expectation or demand for love in return. This grace cannot be earned or bought. It is God’s free gift of self.

Justifying Grace

In the moment that we become aware of this glorious gift of love, we have the free will (also a gift from God) to choose to accept it or turn away. The awareness may come to us in a blinding flash of insight, or it may grow slowly over many years. It may be in a time of deep joy or deep distress, shame, or guilt that we let down our walls of self-reliance enough to recognize God’s love waiting for us. However it happens, we arrive at the moment of awareness that God loves us, even us, just as we are, broken and imperfect. God loves us so much that God came to be with us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ to show us how to become love. When our eyes are opened to this truth, we have the opportunity to accept the gift of God’s love. And in the very moment that we say yes, we are justified, or set right and made clean. John Wesley spoke of this moment as justifying grace because it is God’s unearned love that welcomes us and gives us the faith to say yes.

Sanctifying Grace

Once we have said yes to God’s free gift of love, we are changed for all time. God pursues us through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, working within us as individuals and as the body of Christ to open our hearts to love more, to open our minds to know more of love, and to open our hands to give more and to accept love from others. This is a lifelong relationship of love that fulfills God’s longing for us and deepens our personal and shared hunger for God. Throughout the rest of our lives, the love that is God will work within us through the power of the Holy Spirit, helping us become more like Jesus the Christ. Through this relationship, we are sanctified, or made holy. We are freed from slavery to sin (missing the mark) and freed for deeper, more powerful love of God and neighbor. This is the ongoing work of sanctifying grace.

Beloved Community

Each individual and community that says yes to God is engaged in this lifelong process of sanctification. It is critical, however, to remember that love exists only in relationship and that we are human—not God. Saying yes does not mean we are perfect or that we will never sin again. To truly grow in grace, to become like Christ, we need to practice; we need reminders; we need to confess our failures and receive forgiveness; we need to celebrate our victories; we need to study; we need to share the gift of love with others in words and actions. Most important we need one another—Christian community that encourages and challenges, that rejoices and weeps together, and that welcomes us in to heal and learn and sends us out to serve and spread the love of God throughout

the world.

We are not alone. We are surrounded and embraced by the love of God the Creator; justified through the selfless life, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ; made one with Christ and with one another through the persistent, powerful work of the Holy Spirit; called to loving community in our present journey to become Christ in and for the world, and in our future hope of oneness with God.

Learn more about it . . .

To learn more about God’s love and the United Methodist understanding of grace, speak to a United Methodist pastor or:

  • Go to http://umc.org, the official website of The United Methodist Church, for information and links to opportunities to learn, connect, and serve.
  • Read The Wesley Study Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2009) and Questions and Answers About The United Methodist Church by Thomas S. McAnally (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), available at 1-800-672-1789, http://www.cokesbury.com, or at your local Cokesbury store.

Copyright © 2010 Cokesbury
The scripture quotation is taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible,
copyright ã1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.