Baptism – Our new portable tank!

Yesterday morning was pretty amazing. I’ve commented about this a couple of times but we are in the midst of a fairly busy season here at the church – expansion project as well as renovations, our Sr. Pastor is on sabbatical, some changes in how we operate, etc etc – and this weekend seemed to be the perfect storm of all of that stuff culminating. I said to one of our A/V guys last night that I hope this is the busiest weekend we have here for a long time.

But..

It was busy with good stuff including an awesome service on Sunday morning. We had the chance to hear from a student ministry team that went down to Jamaica last month AND we also baptized six of our high school students. Baptisms are always special here and I think part of the reason is how we do them – we have the person give their testimony of how they came to faith and why they’re getting baptized and then someone close them (a parent, mentor, small group leader) briefly shares some encouragement as well as one or two verses that are meaningful to that person. They get in the tank, get dunked and then everyone cheers – it is pretty awesome!

Yesterday was the first time that we had an opportunity to use our new portable baptism tank. Part of the renovation project is re-working our stage area – removing our old, elevated tank at the back of the stage and now going with this new portable tank and placing it basically front and centre for everyone to see. By moving our tank from the back of the stage to the front created some new excited about the event but also some logistical issues which were handled beautifully on Sunday morning.

We got our tank from the guys at The Portable Baptistry and the setup, use and teardown of the tank was pretty much as easy as they said it would be. The thing fits together like Lego pieces, gets covered with pre-cut foam and then a black vinyl liner is pulled over the whole thing. (No, sorry, we didn’t go for the Lydia or Galilee look!)

With the pump and heater included we had the thing unpacked, setup, filled and heating in about two hours. I think our setup and fill time will be cut down to about an hour and a half the next time we do it. It came up to a good temperature within a couple of hours but we let it warm overnight. By Sunday morning the thermometer was reading close to 100° and we were all making jokes about coming back later that night with some adult beverages and a nice TV. Maybe another time!

When all was said and done, this is a great solution for us. It allows us to get baptisms right to the front of our stage area and gives people the chance to really see what is going on. It communicates that we really value baptism as a step of obedience and will go to great lengths to make the experience great not just for those being baptized but for our congregation as well.

If you’re a portable church and need a solution that is quick to setup or even if you’re a traditional church and want to have the option of doing an outdoor baptism, then this is definitely a solution you should consider!