SCL

“Sweep the leg, Johnny” made me spit out my nutritious breakfast yogurt-type drink all over the screen.

I can imagine the minister:

“YES, Sensei!!”

Oh My Gosh! I love the digging the hole in the lake in the middle of the night. I could actually definitely see this.

But why not put a height restriction on baptisms? One of those fair ride signs that say “you must be this short” and have it vary based on the preacher’s height.

Or for that matter make a baptism ride. Like they get on this coaster of sorts go through a wild ride and at some point near the end get them dunked and have a recording talk them through it. That would be fun!

My abs are killing me after two nights of attempting to keep up in exercise class. This had me howling in pain!

Sweep the leg…classic! I love me some Karate Kid.

We go to a small, relatively new church that meets in an old business so we have a portable baptistry. I’m guessing that the guy who designed this thought that fitting it into the back of a pickup truck was more important than baptizing anyone over 5′5″. So every person over the age of 12, that our pastor has baptized, has been conked on the head on their way down. (Can’t you just hear the sound of skull on fiberglass when I use the word “conk”?)

What’s even funnier is that we have no running hot water. So on Sundays that we baptize, you can see a couple of guys out in the parking lot with turkey fryers warming up the water. And it’s always too hot or too cold come baptism time. You should have heard the gasps in the crowd when we dumped buckets of ice into the water before one of the baptisms!

what about pastors who baptize new believers in a creek — and one believer was, shall we say, larger than said pastor…and the current was strong……..

I can tell you that here in “Life’s-Endzone” (a.k.a. Florida) baptizing in the lakes is a pretty big no-no. The rule I was given when I moved out here was “assume every lake, pond, swimming pool and toilet has an alligator in it.” Nothing ruins a baptism like an alligator.

BTW, regarding your “Sweep the leg, Johnny” comment…..

Well played, sir. Well played.

I snorkel would work for number five.

the senior pastor at my church is 6′ 5″, so he fears no tall person.

Props to the Karate Kid reference.
Believe it or not, that’s the 2nd time in 2 days I’ve heard someone say “Sweep the leg, Johnny.”
What? What?

The phrase I use at our church is “Feet flat, bend at the knees.” I’m 5′5″ and if they don’t bend, I chop knee.

We’re an outdoor-baptism church so we wade out to an appropriate depth. Our current pastor is about 6′4″ so height is NBD. However, babtizees (?) who have, let’s say, an “extra measure of gravitational blessing”- they’re an issue. We use the double-elder dip so as not to lose them on the backswing.

“Am I the only one that thinks these things during church? Probably.”

You mean Probably NOT. We’ve had years of experience being bored during services i could barely understand. I’ve thought about this subject but came up with different answers.

My other favorite thing to do during a boring service? (besides leave) add “…in the bathroom” to the end of all the hymn names. after about 10 you start doing that quiet stifled ’shaking laugh’. It’s a beautiful thing.

Not nearly so funny as your post, but we attended a fine SBC in South Texas during the winter months where, as the minister accomplished the task with ease, I realized there was a ledge in the baptismal font on which the baptizee sat just prior to the dunking. Way cool.

My hubby is tall, and even the pastor who baptized him was tall, they did do it outside in a lake, and he almost took the pastor in with him…we have it on video, it was so funny.

No – you’re NOT the only one! I think I have enough ADD in church to shame 5 roudy boys in Sunday School. I can’t HELP but to let my mind wonder on random and totally unimportant things. Glad to know I’m not the only heathen out there…

How about a policy that says “If the baptismal candidate really loves Jesus then they should canonball into the baptism pool as a testimony of their love.” That would pressure all but the oldest cadidates into canonballing and virtually eliminate the problem without singling out the tall people. Older candidates can show their love by way of the Nestea plung. Brilliant!

A few solutions for the everyday baptism concerns…

1) Let the water do all the work – make use of your ocean (ok this only works in coastal areas). Height difference is much less of an issue when you time the dunking with normal eb and flow of your friendly wave (ok so there might be a few issues with this one, but it seemed to work well for my old church in Southern California). Oh, not to mention salt water helps with the floating factor.

2)Back yard swimming pools. Height never seemed to be an issue in a larger amount of water. During the winter months, you can always seek out your friendly jaccuzzi owner…

3) When I got baptized the pastor opted for the face first aproach. The baptizee would cross their arms over their chest and allow the baptizer to guide their body into the water front first, so to speak. I think this approach was a little less intimidating, but also allowed for people of greater height or girth to aide in the process of finding their way back up.

I’m 6ft8. When I was baptized I remember thinking, “This water is so shallow and I’m so tall”. Luckily, I didn’t fall or throw out my back so all was well. My pastor at the time was around 5′8″.

I think it could also be done the state fair dunking pool style. The baptee sits over a tank on a ledge, and the minister gets 3 balls to hit the target over their head. If he is successful, the ledge gives out, and the baptee is plunged into the pool.

I think that could be a lot of fun.

I love the SCUBA idea. I think he should have a wet suit with stitched vestments on it (for those in more traditional churches).

This is so true. At our church, they always prepare the tall people, telling them to bend their knees when the time comes. Then everyone stifles giggles when the pastor struggles to bring them up again. I’m still waiting for a baptizee to lose their footing and bring the pastor down with them . . .

“Scuba, scuba, scooby dooby dooba, here we go scuba . . . come on!”

Well, you know, I was baptized in the Sacramento River! What what?! But then again, I was taller than my youth pastor, and he had us on our knees. Cheater.

But, now that I think about it, that just may be the simplest way to do it. Get on ya knees so I can baptise yous!

Added you to my blogroll. You crack me up! If only this stuff weren’t all so true!

“When I was a kid we used to sneak up behind people and put our knee behind their knee.”

I’m 27. I still do this about once a month.

I think ministers get nervous too when they see really big people coming to get baptized too.

The karate chop to the back of the knee (what is that area called?!) works just as well if not better than the knee to that area.

“What’s even funnier is that we have no running hot water. So on Sundays that we baptize, you can see a couple of guys out in the parking lot with turkey fryers warming up the water. And it’s always too hot or too cold come baptism time. You should have heard the gasps in the crowd when we dumped buckets of ice into the water before one of the baptisms!”

This Christian walk is NOT for the faint of heart!

Dude I’m going to YouTube right now to look up “Glory of Love!”

“I love me some Karate Kid.”

I love it when people say “I love me some …”

This will be a long comment, so be forewarned…

I went to a Baptist College and was a ministry major, and accordingly heard many good baptism stories (my Bible prof’s dad was baptized immediately after his profession of faith–in February–in the hills of Kentucky–in the river–they had to cut a hole in the ice). But none were better than the on I heard from one of my ministry profs…

He was a youth pastor but was filling in for the pastor at the baptismal service. He had to preach afterwards, and so was wearing a suit. He welcomed people to the service, and when it came time to baptize, he put on a pair of hip waders over his suit to stay dry. Sure enough, though, one of the “baptizees” was a woman of considerable girth (about 400 lbs. by his recollection). She was helped into the pool, and upon getting in, the water level rose to great heights and filled his hip waders, soaking his suit. After getting into the water, one of the helping attendants stuck his head under her baptismal gown, causing my prof to think she was being molested right in front of his eyes. But no, he was simply detaching her prosthetic leg, which then went floating by. When the time came to baptize her, four men lowered her into the water. While she was under, one of the men repositioned his foot, accidentally (and unknowingly) stepping on her gown. They could not pull her up because he was holding her down, and she was flailing her arms and blowing bubbles underwater. So on the count of three, all four men heaved with all their might, pulling her up out of the water and causing the man standing on her gown to fall backwards into the baptistry, splashing on everyone else in the process.

Yes, it may have been exaggerated a bit (this prof had a tendency to do so), but still, I have never heard a better baptizing story than that. Sorry for the length of it, but which of those details deserves to be left out?

I love me some baptism stories. (That was for you anonymous.)

Here’s a couple more:

1) I wish I could have been there when my friend, a former marine, cannon-balled into the baptistry.

2) My church back home used waders and a wireless mic. Well, you can guess the rest. A visiting pastor, not used to either, baptized our wireless mic. Snap, crackle, and pop…and the mic never worked the same again.

My pastor always gives a warning for people to bend their knees, so he doesn’t conk their head on the side of the baptismal. The one time he didn’t say it, this really tall guy hit his head… it was kinda funny, but at the same time a little sad….

Chadwick,

I hear you loud and clear. We’re a mobile church (that’s getting our own warehouse on June 1!) and we’ve had the same issues with the mini-tub.

The turkey fryers is hilarious! And who would be able to keep a straight face with the buckets of ice?

Yikes!

I got Baptized outside in Lake Steven near Seattle. We had a big church picknick, played football, and our Elders/Pastors did the Double Elder dip on everyone just to be safe.

Living in the least churched part of the country near a city that has more dogs than Christians we like to do them outside so that people ask questions like “what the heck are you guys doing?” We actually had quite a few boats idle by to watch what was going on. As a guy that spent most of my 20’s worshiping watersking with my time, money, and passion, I thought it was pretty cool to see a Master Craft Ski boat idle by and honk as I was getting baptized. I as traded in the worship of an idol for the worship of the One True God.

This summer were doing the church picknik/Baptism on the Pudget Sound so people that want to get baptized will likely need to wear a wetsuit. This begs the question if they wear a dry suit does it still count?

You are on a brown n serve roll this week!

What about the squat and the forward dunk?

And what is up with the handkerchief? Is he going to sneeze as soon as he goes under?

“I’m still waiting for a baptizee to lose their footing and bring the pastor down with them . . .”
This happened to my son when he was baptizing a very large young man. They both lost went all the way in. Emabarrasing but hilarious!

Why don’t we just use a hose?

When my husband and I were baptized, our Pastor had us sit on a stool in the jacuzzi (Pastor Bob is something like 5′4, my husband and I are both 5′11) and that made it a lot easier on him to dunk us and pull us back up.

Incidentaly, being baptized in a jacuzzi is totally the way to go. All warm and bubbly and stuff.

Hmm. Don’t any Presbyterians (or Methodists) read this blog?

LOL! When I see tall people baptized, it always reminds me of the day I got baptized. Not because I’m tall (well, okay, since I’m a girl who’s 5′10″, I suppose I AM tall, but back then I was like 8 years old, and thus not so tall), but because someone else was.

My dad was the assistant pastor. He’s tall. The senior pastor? Not tall. My dad baptized some people, and then Scott went in to finish up. WHY did they save the one tall guy for Scott? I don’t know. But it made for a very entertaining baptism. Scott got the guy down low enough, but couldn’t get him back up. He struggled, and finally the guy just stood up. Ha!

Seriously though, most baptismals are big enough to put a lower spot for tall people. If I ever help build a church (yeah…), I will make sure that there is a 1-foot square hole for the tall people. And pray that the short ones don’t fall in and drown! Hehehe.

Yes, Anonymous, Methodists DO read this blog….it’s just that it’s not as much fun to get sprinkled! Except when pastor is doing a baby who doesn’t much appreciate it and screams loud enough to be heard in the next county! D

tyson chandler, from the new orleans hornets, goes to our church. he is 7′1. it was comical watching our pastor, who is 5′10 baptise him.

good times.

Weirdly, when I was baptised, the pastor barely managed to dunk me properly (I’m not sure I was completely submerged, maybe part of me hasn’t been baptised! The horror! Sorry). Given that I’m of the “extra measure of gravitational blessing” variety, I was expecting to have to assist with the upswing, but going down? :-S

Have you ever read the No1 Ladies Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith?

Well, if you read that, you’ll not want to get baptised in a river certainly…

On karate kid, I take baptism would be ‘wipe off’ the sin?!

The first baptism I ever did, the guy was 6′4″ and about 250 plus. He went to the bottom, and I had to go get him. Fun times.

WOW! A Karate Kid AND Caddyshack reference in one SINGLE paragraph. wax on Jon, wax on.

-John Hall
Fresno, CA

Dude my boss just fond this post. He’s 6′11″. you’ll have to head over to his site and give him a shout out…

http://www.thetallstreetjournal.com/forum/topics/baptizing-tall-people

We have a guy at our church who was nearly 5′11″ in 5th grade. our pastor is about 4′11″- 5′1″. Long story short, we now have a dent the size f a large cantelope in our baptisimal.

My campus-based church at Ball State baptizes people every year at our retreat in Northern Indiana. I was raised in the Quaker church and had never been baptized, and so my freshman year I decided to be one of the people baptized in the lake.

For starters, it was late september, so the water was kind-of cold. Also, I'm a pretty large guy (both in height and diameter), so I decided that in addition to the staff-member who I had talked to about baptism, the pastor of our church (who is a little bigger than I am), should probably also assist in the dunking.

Unfortunately, even though everything was so well planned out mechanically, I slipped on a rock in the water and fell over as I was being pulled back up, prompting a snickering laugh from everyone on the beach.

I'm an Anglican, and we have a seriously subdued version of baptism compared to what you described – just pouring the water on the person's head three times. The person getting baptized is usually a baby, so it's pretty easy. We do the same thing for adult baptizees though. Kind of a shame – I'd like to see this tall person baptism thing

When I was teenager, I went to the baptism of an eight-year-old who chose to be baptized in his grandparents' swimming pool. I live in Florida, so this is doable pretty much year-round. The priest wore swim trunks and a Hawaiian shirt. They had the baptism and afterwards everyone went swimming. It was pretty cool.

HAHAA!
Ahhh.

@thussaiththekalyn
I agree.
Just hose 'em down in Gods name.
You could line up like 10 people.