Bowl, font, pool. Sprinkle, dip, soak. No matter what age your church baptizes people, ask yourself this: How consciously are you living your baptism as a way of life, not just an event?

Think back to when one of your loved ones was baptized. If your strongest memories are the christening gown, whether the baptized person cried, and what you ate at the baptismal brunch, then you may be interested to hear that there’s a lot more to baptism.
Many of us have learned to think of baptism as a very special, essential, one-time event. However, congregations from several traditions are exploring ways to help members understand baptism as a lifelong identity reaffirmed in weekly worship.

Revisiting the theology and meaning of baptism is especially important for congregations that are building new worship spaces or renovating existing sanctuaries. Even if your church is architecturally content, you may find ideas from other congregations to enrich how your local church practices and remembers baptism.

Come to the Water
Christians are baptized with water and in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Traditions vary as to how much water you need to baptize. Some churches accept only one type, while others allow more choices among:

1. Aspersion
Aspersion is when the priest or pastor sprinkles water over someone as a sign of God’s grace.

2. Affusion
In affusion, water is poured over the head of the person being baptized.

3. Immersion
In Baptist and other churches, older children or adults stand or kneel and either have a lot of water poured over them or are pushed completely under the water. Catholics and Orthodox Christians also often immerse the candidate in a pool or deep font, with Catholic baptisms by immersion increasing quite a bit in the past several years.

4. Submersion
With submersion, the baptized person kneels and is taken completely under water three times, either head forward or leaned face back.

“Submersion has a dramatic and powerful impact. You see and hear the person struggling for breath,” says Peter Krajnak, who specializes in worship architecture at Rogers Krajnak Architects in Columbus, Ohio.

Soon after becoming rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Ashburn, Virginia, Kevin A. Phillips began to realize “that the baptismal pool is a symbol very much alive among the people.”

When they built a worship space in 1999, St. David’s wanted to recognize the centrality of baptism in the Christian life. You can’t miss the combination font/immersion pool in the center of the sanctuary.

“The baptismal pool runs until after the processional hymn and again after the blessing. People hear the water coming in and going out. It receives a lot of attention from children, which often generates a ‘teachable moment,’” Phillips says.

Let the Design Speak
Before Immanuel Lutheran Church built a new church in Big Rapids, Michigan, they hired a liturgical consultant, Bryan Schneider-Thomas.

Immanuel member Bruce C. Dilg recalls a seminar on baptism where the consultant explained how the practice has moved from Jesus being baptized in the River Jordan, to separate baptismal rooms, to baptismal pools, to baptismal fonts. Schneider-Thomas facetiously suggested that wetting a finger on a tongue to baptize would be the easiest, least expensive solution.

Dilg, who teaches architectural technology at Ferris State University, also works as a sole practitioner in architecture. After Immanuel chose his bid from among more than a dozen architectural proposals, Dilg kept thinking about “the importance of water to the whole Christian experience.”  

The congregation had an antique font, restored by a deceased member, in the front of their original sanctuary. They decided—after much controversy, study and discussion—to go with Dilg’s baptismal design, which included putting the new font in the new narthex.

Immanuel Lutheran’s octagonal font is made of the same brick used on the church exterior.

“The octagonal shape symbolizes the eighth day, which is the first day after creation, the first day of [resurrection] life,” Dilg explains.

A boulder fills enough of the font so that children can’t fall in. Water piped up through a boulder flows back into the font.

“The font is a visible and constant reminder of the importance of water, its looks, its sounds, and its smell, as you enter and leave the church. The water is constantly changing, like life, but the natural rock, upon which it flows, does not change,” Dilg explains.

Decide Where to Place the Baptistry
Trinity Episcopal Church in Toledo, Ohio, had an even older font than Immanuel Lutheran had. Trinity’s marble font, inscribed with one faith, one Lord, one baptism (from Ephesians 4:5), dates back to 1876.

“It was in a corner of the nave, off to the right of the altar, with a brass rail protecting it. The font was like a relic in a museum. Maybe the first three pews could see a baptism,” says Krajnak, who guided the congregation through its fifth renovation.

In 2003, Trinity expanded options for baptism by integrating the antique font with a new immersion pool. Its hexagonal shape symbolizes Good Friday (the sixth day of Holy Week). Its three steps in and down and three steps out and up testify to dying and rising with Christ.

“The blue tile inside the pool enhances the water within, while the gold mosaic tile around the exterior rim relates to the gold mosaic tiles on the historic altar. The longitudinal axis of the church connects the font with the altar, while the cross axis of the church connects the font with the columbarium,” Krajnak explains.

Having built or renovated churches of several denominations, Krajnak says Trinity was “unusual in pushing the practice of baptism as far as they did. Bringing the pool and font to a significant position truly said something theologically.”

For Susan Lowery, Trinity’s associate for spiritual development, placing the baptistry near the columbarium “embraces birth and death in the same area.”

Lowery says its new place, near the church entrance, reminds people that “baptism is the basis by which we are called to ministry. It’s a beginning. Most often we gather the whole congregation around the font to begin worship, just as baptism is the beginning of Christian life.”

Source: www.calvin.edu

Sidebar
Theological Reasons for Baptistry Shapes

Browsing ready-made available for churches, you might think that baptistry choices involve mainly color, how many people the baptistry holds, tile ⁄fiberglass, portable⁄permanent, heated ⁄unheated, and whether the minister gets wet or stays dry.

In her book, A Place for Baptism, Regina Kuehn reminds readers that the baptismal font’s shape reveals baptismal truth, and the font points to baptism’s key element, water. She invites churches to think more about baptism’s sacramental weight and "the radical nature of our baptismal promises," than about whether the font is pretty.

Throughout Christian history, certain baptistry shapes have spoken without words. Whether called fonts or pools, these deliberate designs were generally large enough to hold an adult.

Womb
Many Christians refer to "Mother Church." An unborn baby floats in darkness within its mother’s womb. In the early church, catechumenates were baptized after the long dark Easter Vigil. Baptism births a person into a new Christian life.

Cruciform
When venomous snakes were killing rebellious Israelites, Moses raised a bronze serpent on a pole; bitten people looked at it and lived. Jesus said that in the same way, he would be lifted up so that those who believed in him would have eternal life (John 3:14-16). Kuehn quotes Saint Chrysostom, who said, "Baptism is a cross. What the cross was to Christ and what his burial was, that baptism is to us."

Tomb
The oldest font known to still exist, from a 3rd-century house church in present-day Syria, is shaped like a coffin. Water in a tomb-shaped font signifies triumph over death. Churches that practice adult baptism identify the tomb with being joint heirs with Christ in his dying and rising (Romans 8:14-17, Romans 6:4-5, Ephesians 2:5-6). Kuehn says a tomb font makes sense even for infant baptism, once you understand that "infant baptism anticipates the total life span of the Christian and not only the washing of original sin."

Step-Down
Ruins of 6th-century baptistries in Jordan and Turkey reveal step-down cruciform pools. Walking down into the water and up out of it helps the baptized person experience dying with Christ, being buried with Christ, rising with Christ and living in Christ. Fonts with three sets of steps refer to the Trinity and the baptismal formula of pouring water three times, in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Four sets of steps point to the four gospel writers or the angels at the four corners of the world (Revelation 7:1). Baptist churches often have six steps down and six steps up to symbolize the sixth day of Holy Week, Good Friday.

Octagonal
Eight-sided fonts recall the eighth day, the first day of resurrection. Saint Augustine writes about "the Day of the Lord, an everlasting eighth day." Saint Ambrose explains that a certain font is octagonal "because on the eighth day, by rising, Christ loosens the bondage of death and receives the dead from their graves."

Hexagonal
Ambrose and Augustine also link the number six to Good Friday, the day on which Christ died (the sixth day of Holy Week). Many communion chalices are hexagonal for this same reason.

Tub
Pools and fonts large enough to bathe in emphasize baptism as a washing or cleansing of sins (Ezekiel 36:16-18, Ephesians 5:26).

There are also churches that see no reason to choose among shapes for a baptism pool or font—because they believe in being baptized outdoors in a stream, as Jesus was.

Source: www.calvin.edu

Product Roundup

American Steeples & Baptistries
American Steeples & Baptistries has a large array of durable, low-maintenance, beautifully designed baptistries. There are a variety of accessories to customize your selection. Each baptistry is individually crafted by experienced technicians. Popular choices include:
* Dual and single-entry models
* Portable model
* Stand-behind model so that the minister stays dry
* Split model for small spaces
Custom baptistry construction is also available. 
www.americansteeples.com

American Rehabilitation Ministries
For more than 35 years, American Rehabilitation Ministries has handcrafted a piece of furniture with a fiberglass tub inside to create a Portable Communion Table Baptistry.  Today you can get the original unit or the brand new Raised Panel Communion Table Baptistry.
* The portable unit saves floor space.
* It can be removed completely if needed.
* There is no need for plumbing, so place the unit where you need. 
The quality of the craftsmanship will meet or even exceed your present facility’s furniture.
www.arm.org  

Baptistries by Fiberglass Specialties
Fiberglass Specialties, Inc. (FSI) designs and manufactures high-quality, low-maintenance baptismal pools that are easy to install. The company can meet most any church need, including:
* Portables
* Round shapes
* Custom-designed models
* Replacement inserts
All baptismal pools feature a patented step design that “flows into the tank” to assure a more comfortable and secure baptismal experience. 
www.fsiweb.com