Tidings of an alien baptism of great joy

[Haruo]

I just got home from a wonderful candlelight baptism service at Japanese Baptist Church. The baptismal candidate was Mr. Mitsuo Sakiyama, not a US citizen (hence the "alien baptism" bit*), and the baptizer was Rev. Yuki Sakiyama, a US citizen and son of the one dunked.

The Japanese population is aged enough, on average, that if every nonagenarian—Mr. Sakiyama is 90 years old!—were to be baptized it would have a statistically significant effect on the Christian percentage in the nation.

It was wonderful to listen to the music and to watch Yuki, pastor of the Japanese-language congregation at JBC, manfully keep his voice in gear through a baptismal segment in which he seemed often on the verge of breaking down for joy.

Since JBC doesn't have a Christmas Eve or Christmas Day service, they gave the Sakiyama family (Yuki's mother and younger brother also flew over to be at the baptism) the honor of lighting the Christ Candle on the church's Advent Wreath, the candle presented to Mr. Sakiyama in token of his baptismal pledge (an adaptation of a paedobaptist custom involving godparents); at the end of the service everyone held individual candles lit from the Christ candle, and sang "Silent Night/Kiyoshi kono yoru".

The Japanese choir did a wonderful Japanese arrangement of "What Child Is This?" with flute accompaniment, and a guest sang a stunning solo of "O Holy Night" in Korean.

The English choir did a segment, "Worship the Light", of tom Fettke's Festival of Lights cantata. (Unfortunately, this segment is supposed to incorporate congregational singing of half a dozen well-known carols, the words of which were displayed on the screen, but no one clued the congregation in, so I was pretty much alone in joining in on those sections.

Afterwards there was a scrumptious dinner of chicken cordon bleu (I think; I'm not sure of the terminology in that branch of cuisine), rice with beef curry, macaroni salad, tossed lettuce salad, crunchy sesame cole slaw, kimchi, tea, and a three-layer cake-and-mousse concoction that looked like a cheesecake but wasn't.

The baptismal segment was entirely in Japanese; most other parts of the service were bilingual. It was one of the best baptisms I can recall.

Haruo

* a play on a thread title in the SBC forum; an alien term to us in ABC...

[Tom Butler]

This is an "alien" baptism I heartily approve and rejoiced to hear about.

[Haruo]

I just got home from two Christmas Eve services. At Fremont Baptist ( 7 pm ) we had 21 or 22 (including one guy who I think was drunk and left partway through) people, which was a significant increase over the 12 last December (I was not one of the Twelve ). Three of the attenders had not been there before, including the probable drunk. One of them asked if we were Southern Baptist before deciding to stay; Judy made her usual little "no, if we were Southern Baptist I would not be the pastor" plug for ABC-USA; not technically necessarily true, but likely. The two visitors had both come because of our new street-level lighted sign, which suggests that this may be effective advertising. I was the first reader (Hail Mary). We sang lots of good carols/hymns, and had a nice "Star in the East" duet by a couple of our youth.

Practicing some new pieces before the service began, I discovered to my dismay that (on the spinet) if you played any key between the B-flat above middle C to the F-sharp above that, all keys in that range sank in unison, and if you played more than about pp anywhere from two to all nine of them would play themselves. Most disconcerting. After the service we opened the piano up and discovered that two pencils had fallen into the action. We were able to extract the offenders and restore the instrument to its prior and proper melodiousness. Good thing, as next Sunday we'll have no guitarist and will depend on the spinet to accompany the evening PSST service.

Then I spent an hour or so (on the grand, not the spinet) trying out tunes from the John Kirkpatrick songbook, . ( is one of the most wonderful pieces I've newly met in the last couple years. But there are a bunch of other good tunes in his book, many of which I haven't tried yet.)

Then I moseyed up the street to the Fremont Abbey (formerly St. Paul's Lutheran) for COTA's 10 pm candlelight service. They had a good 70 or 80 in attendance. Many of the same songs, but a few different ones, particularly liked their "Of the Father's Love Begotten". I realized I don't know the canonical responses on receipt of the elements. They (We) sang "Joy to the World", bracketing the confession segment, to a very strange but powerful tune. I felt like I was being asked to "sing the didgeridoo part will you, Leland?". Don't think I've ever sung it congregationally before to anything but A.

All in all a fulfilling evening of Christmas scripture and song.

Haruo

[Haruo]

[Lamar Wadsworth]

Sounds like a wonderful service, wish I could have been there. I think we all can heartily approve of this "alien immersion!" One of the most memorable baptisms I ever did was in a Maundy Thursday service, perfect time to talk about being "baptized into Christ's death."

[Prentice Fox]

The Theme of our Carols and Candlelight Service last night was "Home for Christmas." Members spoke about being Home from College, Home from the Missionfield, Home from the Battlefield, and Home from the Hospital." A most Beautiful Service. The Sung Congregational Prayer was, "Awaken us O Lord, to a Brighter Day, Dawning of new Hope, dispersing fears away. A candle for the lost, a beacon in the night; Send Immanuel, send to us your light." UNCLE PRENTICE.

[Tom Butler]

Haruo, The counsel you give to the candidate and the questions you asked are excellent, and I am quite impressed.

I would not describe it as a liturgy, as Tim does, but it makes no difference. Looks perfectly scriptural to me.

[Haruo]