Baptism & Confirmation Class
Every Sunday
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Professing Christ: A Class for New Believers
Professing Christ is a class for new believers in Christ (of at least middle school age) who wish to make a public profession of faith through baptism or confirmation.
Purpose
A new believer’s initiation into the life of the church is a solemn and joyous occasion. New believers should be instructed in their biblically-defined responsibilities towards other believers and the world and should have a paradigm for the Christian life that structures, informs, and energizes their future discipleship. The purpose of this class is twofold:
- Discernment. The class encourages a process of discernment: has the candidate for public profession genuinely repented of their sins and trusted in Christ for salvation? Discernment is necessary because the desire to publicly profess faith and genuine faith are not the same thing. There are many reasons one may desire baptism or confirmation other than true faith in Christ: parental or peer pressure, the false assumption that baptism
guarantees salvation, a desire to belong to the church community, a guilty conscience seeking relief but not looking to Christ, and many other reasons. In the class, we will search God’s word to understand what a Christian is in order to confirm that candidates
for public profession are sincerely trusting in Jesus. (We don’t assume false professions, but we also want to be sure that every candidate for baptism or confirmation has “counted
the cost,” as Jesus requires us to do. For more, read Luke 14:25-33.) - Instruction. This class aims to articulate what true faith is and what qualities and actions flow from it, according to God’s word. Life in and with Christ isn’t a private, invisible affair. It should be visible (James 2:18-26), first through public profession, then through a process of conformation to Christ’s image (Rom 8:29). The Christian, unsurprisingly, should “look like” Jesus more and more over the course of his/her life. We pray that this class helps you set out on the right course as you begin your walk with Christ.
How Does It Work?
- We offer a three-week-long class for new believers in anticipation of their baptism or confirmation.
- Each class participant will ask a member of CHBC to accompany them through the class. Their companion will not only attend class, but also engage the candidate in conversation
on the class materials, prepare him/her for public profession, and help him/her walk with Christ afterwards. Relational connection to our church community is necessary because baptism signifies not only incorporation into Christ but incorporation into the fellowship
of the local church.