Does anyone know where you can baptized without having to join a church?

Question

I have to be baptized.... this is not a question to me, nor has it been for as long as I can remember. However, I am having a problem finding a church that will do this without me becoming a member of the church. I know what they say (at the church) that it is an act you do in front of a congregation to affirmate your love and belief in Jesus, The Holy Spirt, and God and that the baptism is for the people of the church as well as the person getting baptized. My thoughts on this are a little different as though I would like to affirm my obedience to God and get baptised but do I have to become a member of something I don't necessarily want to? We pray as a family everyday and learn about God as a family. I would say our faith is strong in God but our faith is not strong in the people who represent him in the church. They are meerly men as you and I and I believe they operate as a business. Please let me know if you know where I can go. Thank you and God Bless the World.

wow! thank you all for your input so far. To the question why I am having problems with this is, I guess, honesty. They ask me if I will go to Member Classes and when I say that I would like to baptized without membership there seems to be no interest in helping me. I would pay their church for their time. Please don't get me wrong. I am happy for true Christians who have found a church and are blessed with it... One day maybe I will find that perfect church but that has not happened yet. The reason for wanting to be baptized now before finding a church is that I feel that living without baptism is like driving without a seatbelt.

For the few that question my desire for baptism but not wanting to join the church is that I would like to affirm my love for God to everyone, but I don't understand why I have to be a member for this. It just seems like God would want anyone who wanted to be baptized, be baptized. In my opinion you don't have to be member to have a relationship with GOD.

I believe in God and believe Jesus sacraficed himself for us. I am a believer.

Answer 1

If your husband is a true believer and you are also a true believer.

You can biblically baptize each other if you choose. It can be the most rewarding and solumn ceremony at a lake or pond and you will still receive the God given "feeling" that you would get in any baptismal "tub" at a church

That being said, I hope and pray that you find a small church that teaches Gods word straight from the bible. These small churches tend to be way less determined to grow financially. They spend their time and resouces spreading Gods word in tangible ways and from your description of your interaction with churches, its seems that you have visited larger ones where man has been consumed with his own thought and left God at the lobby.

Any believer can baptize another in the holy spirit, it was never done inside a church building that I can find in the bible. Remember the church is not a physical building, it is the people that belong to God that are called the church or the "bride".

Answer 2

There must be some who would..
I would first ask you about being a Christian and make sure that you had a biblical reason for wanting to be baptised. If you didn't want to become a member then so be it.
My main reason would be, that I don't baptise un-believers.
Why would you really want to be baptised and be a part of the body of Christ and not want to go to one of his churches? If you can not love the other brothers and sisters and accept their failures, then how can you and your failures be accepted. This is all a part of loving the other brothers and sisters too. This is one huge church in many different places in the world and we are to love each other by COMMANDMENT. Something is not lineing up with what you are saying.
Anyway come on down here and I will probably baptise you..

Answer 3

Well part of being a christian after baptism is fellowship with other christians, thats why they want you to be in their church. You can say you can do it at home, but I can promise you its not the same. Their really isn't a gray area, you either go all the way with being a christian, or none of the way. If you are looking for a church that will let you have a gray area, I hope you don't find it, because I can assure you they are not properly teaching God's word. You don't really have to like the people you go to church with, but church isn't really about being social, its about praising God and gathering in His name to worship Him, not the people there. Congrats on wanting to get baptized, but I think you need to have a little talk with God!

Answer 4

Hi'
I have good news for you...You can be helped to be baptized by anyone who has received Jesus Christ.However,you must realise that you need a good church to teach you truths of salvation and Jesus by the Holy Spirit and the anointing.If you're in a church where they don't practice baptism,then there's something wrong with that church.Find a Spirit filled saints church who will lead to Jesus.

Answer 5

If you read the Catechism, paragraph 1256, it says the following:

"In case of necessity, any person, even someone not baptized, can baptize, if he has the required intention. the intention required is to will to do what the Church does when she baptizes, and to apply the Trinitarian baptismal formula. the Church finds the reason for this possibility in the universal saving will of God and the necessity of Baptism for salvation"

Or the Compendium of the Catechism, item 260 which says the same:
"In case of necessity any person can baptize provided he has the intention of doing what the Church does. This is done by pouring water on the head of the candidate while saying the Trinitarian formula for Baptism: “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”."

Answer 6

I belong to a Methodist church in Ohio that has baptized people without having them join.

Baptism is a commitment to God, membership is a commitment to a community. Fellowship with other believers is essential to growth, but becoming a church member should not be taken lightly. Please remember that no church is perfect because no one is perfect. If we were we would either be Christ or already in Heaven.

God Bless.

Answer 7

You do not need a church for baptism. Are you talking immersion? And you do not need a Minister to do it.
you can have a close family friend, even your own dad can do it provided he too is saved- that is the only requirement that I'd have.

Make it a small gathering even at your local YMCA... or a friends Jaccuzi or pool .. a few witnesses and wah-la! done
Chapter and verse me anywhere in the Bible where it says it must be by a minister , in a church, and then you are a member.
Cant do it cause its not there!

Answer 8

I am sure many people want to know why you want to be baptized if you don't want to join a Church. Either it has validity or not and if it has validity so does the Church. The argument you have is ages old and just a cop out. You want to worship God when it is convenient for you not when he said to. This would not have gone over very good in the Israelite camp or the Synagogues in Jerusalem in Jesus' time or in any Church throughout the ages. You have to struggle with your fellow man just like everybody else.

Answer 9

Pray to God in all sinceriry and He will guide you to His organization.
The word “baptize” comes from the Greek ba·pti′zein, meaning “to dip, to plunge.” (A Greek-English Lexicon, by Liddell and Scott) Christian water baptism is an outward symbol that the one being baptized has made a complete, unreserved, and unconditional dedication through Jesus Christ to do the will of Jehovah God.

Who urged humans to feel free to make their own decisions without regard for God’s commands?

Gen. 3:1-5: “Now the serpent [being used as a mouthpiece by Satan; see Revelation 12:9] . . . began to say to the woman: ‘Is it really so that God said you must not eat from every tree of the garden?’ At this the woman said to the serpent: ‘Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. But as for eating of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God has said, “You must not eat from it, no, you must not touch it that you do not die.”’ At this the serpent said to the woman: ‘You positively will not die. For God knows that in the very day of your eating from it your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like God, knowing good and bad.’”

When a person’s desire for independence leads him to imitate the world outside the Christian congregation, under whose control does he come? And how does God view this?

1 John 2:15; 5:19: “Do not be loving either the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” “The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one.”

Jas. 4:4: “Whoever, therefore, wants to be a friend of the world is constituting himself an enemy of God.”

Answer 10

I'm with pourin, why would you want to be baptized if you didn't want to belong to any church? Are you worried about your "salvation"? Baptism is not a spiritual car wash. It is a symbol of initiation into the Christian faith, and that faith includes membership in a community. If you can't stand other people, how "Christian" would you be?