Ecumenism: Baptist

Hospitality Justice Growth

It’s our conviction that Jesus builds bigger and stronger lives.
While we’re a diverse people, we share one heart for Jesus.

Scroll down to 'Believer’s Baptism by Immersion' and read through to Baptist Worship.

Believer's baptism is an ordinance performed after a person professes Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and is symbolic of the cleansing or remission of their sins.

To call ourselves ‘Baptist’, means we stand within an historic tradition whose most obvious distinguishing mark is believers baptism. These roots go back to England in the 1600’s, during debates about the reform of the church and the separation between church and state. A group of people asserted, among other others, that baptism for believers should be the only basis on which the church is founded. This group grew out of the English separatist movement and came to be known as the ‘Baptists’.

Baptist: it’s one of the most well-known denominations in Protestant Christianity and aptly named after its main belief in believer’s baptism, where a person chooses to publicly proclaim their faith in Christ by baptism.
Here are 10 things to know about Baptists and their beliefs.

Baptism by full immersion, priesthood of all, congregational, separation of church and state.

Baptist churches tend to be evangelical in doctrine, but they do not have a central governing authority so a wide range of beliefs can be seen between one Baptist church and another. Some Baptist churches use the following acronym as a summary of the common distinctives of Baptists:

Many conservative Baptists oppose gambling, alcohol, tobacco, and some prohibit dancing and movies.

Baptists form the fifth largest Christian church in the world. Baptist churches are found in almost every country in the world and have about 40 million members worldwide.

Some people try to trace organized Baptist churches back to New Testament times or to John the Baptist. One writer even suggested that Adam was the first Baptist! Certainly we believe that our doctrine and faith root in the New Testament, but we first meet our organized denomination considerably this side of Adam.

The origins of the Baptists are most commonly traced to John Smyth and the Separatists. In 1609, John Smyth, led a group of separatists to the Netherlands to start the General Baptist Church with an Arminian theology.

The Council is comprised of six independent, non-executive Council members as well as the Director of Ministries, Honorary Legal Advisor and Union Secretary. The Council members have a broad range of business, institutional and governance experience. They apply judgement and accountability standards to ensure that our work results in the greatest possible impact on constituent churches that we serve.

Equality, congregational and interdependent

Scroll to the end of this webpage to read about how the Baptist Church is organised.