Why did you get rebaptized???
 

So considering the recent threads on baptism, I decided to start a thread on rebaptism.

Share with us YOUR testimony with us on why you got rebaptized..

Please, let's not argue whether Father, Son, HolyGhost is the right way or Jesus' name is the right way (we already have threads on that).

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

I was saved on March 28, 1955 when I asked Jesus to come into my heart. He accepted my invitation and came in to dwell as the Holy Spirit. My life was changed as I became a new creature in Christ.

I started going to the Baptist church in our small town. Later that summer the church was going to have a baptizing. Four of us applied for baptism. We were all accepted for baptism and church membership and were baptized by immersion in a nearby lake.

Through reading the Bible and listening to some ministers on the radio and reading some other literature, I realized that there was more available to me than what that Baptist church preached. The official stand of the church was cessationist. We were taught that the gifts of the Spirit had all ceased when the written Word was complete during the first century.

I began praying that God would baptize me in His Holy Spirit. There were no churches in our town that taught that the gifts of the Spirit were still available. I did get to attend a couple of UPC churches a couple of times. I read in a couple of tracts about baptism in Jesus' name. One tract published by the UPC at that time said that the name of the Father is Lord, the name of the Son is Jesus, and the name of the Holy Ghost is Christ and therefore the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is "Lord Jesus Christ." That really didn't make a whole lot of sense to me, that it took three separate words to make up one name.

On October 27, 1955 I attended a service at Elim Tabernacle in Milwaukee, WI. I don't remember if it was a conference or what but there were people there from several churches. I went to the altar and was "seeking for the Holy Ghost" (a term they used back then) and the person I came with asked me if I wanted to get baptized. I figured I was going to get baptized in the name of Jesus Christ sooner or later so I just went ahead and did it that night.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

If I may ask Sam, why did you get rebaptized since you had already been baptized before?

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

I had come to believe that in the first century church they used the name of Jesus Christ in baptism so it was a step toward the NT pattern.

I did not at that time (and still don't today) believe I had to get rebaptized to get saved or to get my sins washed away.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

gotcha...thanks

Would love to hear others' opinions...

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

I was baptized at the age of 7 or 8 because I knew Acts 2:38 was the way to keep out of Hell. I was baptized by my pastor Wayne Ellard at the United Pentecostal Church of Greenville, Mississippi.

I never did receive the Holy Ghost with evidence of speaking in other tongues but everyone thought I did because I told them I did. I wanted to be accepted and plus I didn't want to go to hell. Even I had told myself that I had received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, but at the age of 27 I woke up in the middle of the night and realized that I had never spoken in tongues and that I had been living a lie. I repented of that lie.

I do not hold anything against the people that taught me these things growing up. I think they were really teaching me what they thought was right. Still, the results were disastrous and I praise God for bringing me out.

I am now a member of The Village church in Flower Mound, TX. It is a reformed church that allows for the gifts of the spirit. It is without a doubt one of the best churches in the world and has grown from 180 to 12000 in less than 9 years. I do not believe that my first baptism was valid because I didn't have the understanding neither had I been born again. My intention is to be rebaptized as soon as I can work up the courage.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

Two questions:
1. How does The Village Church in Flower Mound, TX baptize?

2. If it is not by immersion and they do not vocalize the name of Jesus, how do you feel about that?

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

They baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Pastor's do not baptize but people are baptized by their friends or those who are influential in their life. I have seen son's baptize their mother and father's baptize children.

It is by immersion. They are a traditionally baptist church. The baptism services are very powerful and people give their testimony before they are baptized.

This is what is said over baptism. "Who do you call upon for your salvation?" and the person being baptized will say, "Jesus Christ" and the baptizor will say, then I now baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. The way I have come to understand this is that the "name" means authority. We are being baptized by the authority of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I have to admit. A few years ago, I was still very oneness in my thinking and to be baptized this way would have been difficult. However, I now embrace trinitarian doctrine so this method of baptism doesn't bother me at all.

I still remember being apostolic so I know the feelings and how different it can feel to baptize this way.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

I was baptized as an infant in the Methodist Church because that is where my parents attended at the time. Eventually they stopped going to church completely (my Mom goes now and has a wonderful walk with the Lord. Praise God for that!). But I went to the Missionary Church from the time I was 5 years old until I was 14.

At 14, I repented of my sins and wanted to be baptized. However the church I attended only held baptisms once a year because they had to borrow a baptistry to do it. So a lady had been coming to our church from the UPC church in Toledo. She found out that a couple of us wanted to be baptized, so she invited us to attend First Apostolic with her on Sunday nights. After about the third week that we went, we were invited to be baptized that very night. I didn't know that there was any difference in the words at that point at all. I just knew I wanted to be baptized by immersion. So I jumped at the chance. I have to tell you tho - my parents were FURIOUS with that church for baptizing me without their permission.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

lol...

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

it IS kind of a chuckle now (since I am mid-50's!). But it sure wasn't back then. Which brings me to my next question: How do the pastors on here feel about baptized someone under-age when they don't have parental permission?

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

I can understand that.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

I don't think some one under legal age should be baptized without parental consent.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

OK I have not been REbaptised but hear me out please.

About the time I was expected to "join the church, and be baptised" etc. I flew the coup and became Pentecostal, and got plunked in Jesus Name.

Being baptized is good, and being baptised in Jesus Name per Apostolic pattern is better, as far as I am concerned.

HOWEVER, the current Oneness Pentecostal fad of using precise and exact baptismal formula and mode to exclude other Christians from the body of Christ is horrific, IMHO.

When the "New Issue" became an issue (no pun intended) it did not immediately manifest it'self as an exclusionary doctrine, but rather, a more "Apostolicly correct" way of identifying with Christ via baptism. Somehow many Oneness Pentecostals have used their distinctions to alienate the bulk of Christianity from the body of Christ. Of course the irony of this phenomenon is that it's the minor splinter that gets alienated rather than the larger body.

Fanaticism will not only cause baptism extremes to "ensure salvation" in Jesus Name, but also repeated baptisms in Jesus Name to make sure all body parts went under, or that one "really understood" the act was redemptive etc...

I say preach the gospel. Allow the scriptures to speak. Leave the judgement to God.

The body of Christ is larger than your local apostolic Church folks!

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

With few exceptions - I agree with this.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

I was baptized when I was almost 16. I'd wanted to be baptized for years, but Mom wouldn't allow it because she believed I was still a child (stating she only believed in ADULT baptism, emphasis hers). She also thought I was just following a fad or getting baptized because "everyone else is doing it". She had no clue what God was doing in my life, and with the limited teaching we got at the church we were raised in, I had no way of putting it into words.

When I left for college, I wound up in a Pentecostal church. I loved the church--the people were friendly and encouraging, there was teaching beyond basic Bible stories (I'd never had that), there were activities throughout the week (I'd never had that either), and I felt I could feel God more in their services. (Looking back, I think a lot of what I felt was excitement, not God, per se.)

I was taken through Into His Marvelous Light and didn't get it. I didn't understand about receiving the Holy Ghost meaning that we had to seek the Holy Ghost--as a matter of fact at the end of the Bible study I was asked if I wanted the Holy Ghost, and my response was "Um, not right now!" I thought they were going to pray for me and I'd immediately receive what they were talking about, and I wanted to study it out first. Oneness and Jesus' name baptism also confused me, especially regarding Mt 28:19 and Acts 2:38 in baptism. My question was: If we are to be baptized in Jesus' name, and Jesus is the name of the Father, the name of the Son, and the name of the Holy Ghost, then what difference does it make which formula is used? They both mean the same thing, after all! I couldn't understand why Pentecostals couldn't see that; it made sense to me!

Several times in the next couple weeks someone would ask if I wanted to be rebaptized or tell me I should be. I looked up Jesus' name baptism in some of the college library's books, and read in one or two that early churches baptized in Jesus' name. I also looked up Acts 2:38 in every Romance language of the Bible that the library had (there were several). I couldn't read the verse in every language, but I could recognize the name of Jesus. I decided I wanted to be rebaptized at that point.

Mom was furious that I would be rebaptized. She felt by being rebaptized that I might be condemned to Hell. I think Mom and Dad also felt I was rejecting their salvation, which I wasn't. At no point did I think that I had not been saved when I was 9.

I wonder sometimes if I made the decision based so much on what I truly studied in my limited way, or if I was simply looking for a confirmation of what my new friends were saying so that I could be more a part of them. I don't know that I'll ever have the answer to that.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

The really cool thing is that GOD himself knows, understands and communicates with your heart, and never is trying to trip you up on a technicality.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

Mind explaining a little more in depth? If God knows our intentions were wrong, He will accept us anyway? Or He will direct us into better understanding? Or... ???

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

Same here Sam.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

Just saying that salvation is primarily a heart issue, and not so much based on a technicality of baptismal intention.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

Thanks!!

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

I was baptised in the catholic church as an infant. Raised in that church and left it when I was 15 years of age. I went to a pentecostal church one night when I was 22 years of age and went to the altar and was baptised that night in Jesus name. Nothing really happened to me during all of this and I never went back there just back out into the world. About three years later I went to a Baptist Church and heard a real man of God preach from his heart the message of the cross. I knew this message from being catholic as a child. But when this man preached for the first time God reached down deep into my heart and convinced me of who i really was, and my heart was broken because of what they did to Jesus. I went to that altar and for the first time I really had a real experience that changed my life and will. Later they baptised me in the name of the father,son, and holy spirit.
Later I met a pentecostal man and started to hang around him and others. And some how I ended back at that pentecostal church where i went years before./ Strange>
After hearing the teachings on baptism in Jesus name and later receiving the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues, I really felt like I wanted to get baptised under the right conditions.
This church was not a UPC church but the Pastor of this church was one of the original founders of the UPC back I believe in the early forties.
They didn't teach remission of sin through baptism and I didn't do it because of those scriptures. I did it because I wanted to and wanted to do not only that but everything that Jesus wanted me to follow.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

I did it as a way of attempting to convert a Methodist Pastor to practicing baptism in the Name of Jesus with the ultimate intent that he would leave the Methodist faith to become a Oneness Pentecostal.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

I was rebaptized in the name of Jesus Christ many years ago, because I saw it as commanded in scripture that baptism was to be done in the name of Jesus Christ. Now, through all the trials and failures spiritually in my life, I have come to an understanding that baptism may not save, but is a commandment in scripture to the saved, and is an issue of covenant and identity with Jesus Christ. My pastor and I share this same view, and I personally am looking forward to a series he is soon teaching on this subject.

Needless to say, in my own studies, baptism does not save, but is a commandment to the believer. If one is physically unable to be baptized, their salvation is not in jeopardy. If one rebels and refuses to be baptized, that is another story all together. Inability and rebellion are two different stories.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

I was commanded via the radio to go get baptized in Jesus Name. Had recently already been baptized in A of God, but the radio preacher's take was persuasive and scriptural enough, so I did. The station reached into the Midwest every night--XEG from Monterrey, Mexico. Bishop Randolph Goodwin. After rebaptism, quickly came to adopt Oneness, and never regretted the doctrinal switch. Do regret 10 years as an unquestioning lamb, however. Then another 10 years as a questioning whatever, sheep/goat. Geep.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

No one wants to be a goat, but the idea that a sheep has no thoughts of their own, or can be trampled at will and whim of the shepherd/pastor is a bad one. The sheep need to stay out of the dehorning and castration lines.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

I was baptized as a baby in the Catholic church.

I was baptized after repentance as an adult in a charismatic church in the titles. Awesome experience.

I was baptized in Jesus name in the UPC cause the preacher told me to. Not an awesome experience.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

He's tellin' the truth!!:thumbsup

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

Several years ago I realized the House of God is a lot larger than the little room that I had been living in.

Re: Why did you get rebaptized???
 

I remember the Bishop. I sat in my patrol car many a night and listen to him preach. He was strong on holiness living and made a lot of excellent points.
The sermon I liked the best was the one he preached on, Some people think anything is alright.
One of his quotes was this.

A man will go and get him a woman and say, she loves me and I love her. Then a couple of weeks later he dropped that woman and got himself another woman and tells everybody, it's ok, she loves me and I love her, we are alright.
Bishop then said; I got news for you! Your love won't turn God's thoughts backward.