Amazing baptismal story-tell us yours

edward gentry

If you have an unusual baptismal/ dedication story, tell us.
Best story wins a non-prize.
Heres mine.
Well...When I was about all of 16 years old my father was a ministerial servant and he told us one evening that his name had
come up in connection with being made an elderman, he was very
happy, after all he was a man who loved power and authority.
A couple of weeks later he was down in the dumps, appeared some
sweet and faithfull brother had "murmurred",might even be
"stumbling" in the old never ending race of faith.
This stumbling one had a problem. Seemed he didnt think Daddy
had his "Household in proper order", thus didnt qualify for
Eldership. The specifics were that Daddy had a 15 year old son
(my superspiritual brother who was even at that time, he later told me, secretly engaging in acts of fornication) who was baptized
AND a pioneer.While little old me was 17 and not baptized.
Didnt LOOK right.
So daddy approached me and inquired as to WHY I wasnt eager to make a dedication.I raised the point about Jesus being 29 before HE got baptized and he was the son of GOD!I mean, if he didnt know what he was doin until 29 years of age, why the hell should I?
Daddy said that "Times were different"now, urgency, imminence and all. But I was still reluctant, actually I was in a state of sin, being a slave to the crime of Onan and preferred the idea of not
having to stand before God on A day in my own right. Id rather
slip on thru the Big A on Daddys standing.
Course I couldnt tell HIM I was onanizing three times a day.
A few days later he came back at me again, he had tried
"Reasoning" with me and now it was time for more fundamental
methods of persuasion, more direct methods.
He grabbed me by the throat slammed me into the wall and asked me
if I was ready to dedicate my life to Jehovah yet.
I wasnt.
He punched me in the ear. "Was I ready?"
I wasnt. He punched me in the other ear.
By this time I was ready.
He felt I had made a good decision and later regretted the
"necessity" of having to "convince" me of the urgency of preventing a brother from being stumbled.
That, folks is how I came to the decision to dedicate my life to Jehovahs service.More importantly,perhaps, that is how Daddy came to qualify for Elderhood.
Later, if you are interested, I will tell the tale of what happened the night before I recieved water immersion.

why144000

No big story, I was in my early teens and everyone around me was getting dipped. Why not me? Getting dipped is the fast track to respectability when you are young. What about minors not being competent to enter into a contract? Especially when the outcome of defaulting on the contract is so serious.

ISP

I went into this pool and these 2 guys dipped me in the water...that was about it. There was no voice from heaven etc.......

ISP

Amazing

Hi Ed: Good experience, well I guess it wasn't too good for you, but it is rather unique. My own baptism was less tense, well, except when I was getting dressed afterwards, and I broke the zipper on my suit pants. Sooo ... I had to walk around the rest of the day with my Bible in front of me. My Fiancee' helped too, by standing in front of me as much as possible.

Prior to my baptism, my very seriously Catholic brother used the 'fist' method to try and convince me not to leave the Catholic Church and be a JW. He didn't hit me, he just held his fist to me and threatened, but I stood my ground - knees shaking and all that. 25 years later, as I left the JWs, we mended fences and it was among the best times of my life. - Amazing

lauralisa

When I was ready for the "big B", I knew there was no way I was gonna let some strange freak in a wet T shirt put his hands on my almost-undressed self and force my head under water, in front of a cast of -well, hundreds. Just going to the assemblies was difficult for me.

I kept pestering everyone about why couldn't they just take me down to the river near my home and with a few select people there, symbolize my dedication in that way. Where did it say in the bible that it had to be on an assembly day, and blah blah.

I have to say, the guys in control of "baptismal policies and procedures" were pretty cool with me about it. To make a long story short: one evening, a small group of us (my study conductor, my non jw, tolerant and thoroughly agnostic now-ex husband who thought this whole deal was an interesting display of totally-fringe humanoidism, my two kids and a couple of friends I'd come to trust) went to the assembly hall when it was empty, one elder gave me my own little baptismal talk thing, asked me the questions. I still balked at an unknown man touching me, and they allowed my study conductor's husband to actually 'do' me. (yeah, lame joke) He was an elder, of course, but he'd never been on the dunker of people list before.

I thought that was pretty cool of them.

A bit of a contrast with YOUR experience, Edward, which is nothing less than psycho, imo.......

lauralisa

It's only water from a stranger's tear (Peter Gabriel)

edward gentry

intestin phenomena here, cant read any reply postings unless i make a reply myself,this should put me onto replies to my own thread.

DIM

no big story here, but a little background:

my mom found a bag of pot in my dresser in october, 1992. I was removed as a publisher and somehow the entire congregation knew that i was "bad news" (i was 15 years old, for crying out loud). so i figured i'd better get spiritual really fast and once I was allowed to answer and go out in service i progessed towards baptism. exactly one year later in october, 1993 i took the plunge. oddly enough, the two other people in my congregation to get baptized w/ me - the first one is a drug addict and is divorced - he's only 10 months older than me - and the other is in jail (although he was reinstated from jail) because he set his girlfriend on fire in a drunken rage. very very strange.

i'm sick and tired of hearing things from uptight-short-sighted-narrow minded hypocritics. all i want is the truth just gimme some truth - John Lennon

ZazuWitts

My baptismal story has some similarities to yours, Ed.

My mother's best friend, had a 14 year-old daughter who had gotten baptized. In order to 'keep-up' with her friend, mom put pressure on me to get baptized. I was resisting, saying I wasn't ready yet, because truly, even then I didn't really believe. I recall one night when the discussion became extremely intense, and I could see the rage on my mom's face, and I was expecting at least a major slap-around.

For some reason, she abruptly did a turn around, offered to buy me lots of new clothing, shoes, the works. And, only she and I would go to Baltimore with Brother and Sister 'Anointed' in their new Lincoln Continental. We would stay at a first rate hotel, where many GB member were lodging, because Brother 'Anointed' had Bethel connections.

So, I guess I would say I sold out for a few new dresses. Later, I realized why my mom did the abrupt turnaround; it was because SHE wanted the so-called prestige, 'honor' of being around the so-called elite of the Borg.

And here is something interesting, because it was all accomplished with very short notice, I think I may be the only person? who was never asked the traditional prebaptism stock questions. We just took off, and I showed up at the pool and was dunked...never questioned before or after.

I recall feeling a little down afterwards, but I did throw myself into field service, rarely missed it, or a meeting, did vacation pioneering, and tried to be the 'good witness.'

When larc and I started dating, got engaged and he expressed his own doubts, I was elated. I think if I had married a staunch believer, I would have wound up one of those seriously depressed woman...saw a lot in that category.

Ranchette

Baptism story #1
When I was 13 I was head over heals in love with my 17 year old boyfriend (At least I thought it was love) anyway he told me that out he was getting baptized at the next circuit assembly. Mom had been pressuring me to take the plunge and when I found this out it seemed perfect that I should get baptized with him then we would have these wonderful special memories after we were married to reminisce on and to tell to others.
LOL, I was such a romantic.

BTW I broke up with him when I was 15. He was messing around with another girl when I was gone for a week visiting my best friend.
So now my baptism memories aren’t so warm and fuzzy as I had planned.
I found out what real love is the next year. I’ve been married to this one every since.

Story #2

At the last district assembly we attended there was a fiasco regarding the baptismal pool.
During the morning secession I noticed brothers in the pool with buckets and an assembly line on the floor.
They were draining the pool with buckets! When I looked closer there was gross stuff floating in the water!
Baptism was scheduled right before lunch and during the announcements we were informed that the baptisms would be done that evening after the assembly but the baptism talk would be done on schedule. I think they said due to poor water quality.
It was a very anti climatic talk(as usual) this time with a dead end .
We found out at lunch that a brother used the wrong kind of glue to attach the carpet that went on the steps that went into the pool and it reacted with the chemicals in the pool and disintegrated the carpet .I bet that poor guy got chewed out.

#3
Heard that the baptism talk was given at one assembly but there was no one getting baptized.
I guess they thought, “The show must go on”!!!!

DID I WIN?

Ranchette

edward gentry

many thanks.
cant even get the responses to my own thread onto the screen but Im sure the responses were interesting.
Guess EVERYTHING about this church is invisible

Amazing baptismal story-tell us yours

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