For most Christian families baptism is an important step in the faith journeys of their children. While they look forward to the day with anticipation, many will also become nervous when their children come to them saying they want to be baptized. They know they should be having some important conversations with their children as they reach this milestone, but are unsure where to begin or are fearful of somehow making a critical mistake while having these conversations.
We understand how you feel. When our daughter wanted to study baptism, we looked for a resource that contained everything we wanted. Not finding many options and none that would work for us, I wrote a Student’s Guide to Baptism with Leader Guide based on the conversations with our daughter and her insight into some of the questions her peers were asking.
The result is a study that can be used by parents, Bible class teachers and others studying baptism with young people. It is one of our most popular resources and numerous parents and teachers have told us how helpful it was in helping them organize their thoughts and feel more confident that they had had the important conversations they wanted to have before their child/student was baptized.
The study is set up to be used with both young people who are ready to make this crucial decision and with those who may not be mature enough quite yet. It keeps both engaged in the process, engaging those children who often lost all interest after being told they were too young. The study can be gone through quickly for those who just want to confirm readiness that is already fairly apparent. For those who need more time, each section has optional activities that can be done to extend learning. These same activities can also be used after baptism as a way of continuing to examine Christianity and living the Christian life with the young Christian.
The leader guide walks adults through the process, if they are feeling nervous. It also contains additional scriptures on a variety of topics for those who would like to dive a little deeper into scripture as they study with young people.
Best of all, thanks to our generous donors, this resource is available for free on our website as an ebook. Here’s the link to get you started… http://teachonereachone.org/baptism-study/ . May God bless you as you help young people make the most important decision of their lives!