Church in the UK
How do I get baptised in the UK?
Contact a local church and ask. The minister will meet you, explain what baptism means, help you prepare and arrange a date. Baptism is free.
The steps
- Find a church. If you don’t already belong to one, start going to one. Baptism brings you into a church family, so it makes sense to be baptised where you will worship.
- Speak to the minister. Say that you would like to be baptised. They will be delighted.
- Prepare. Most churches offer a few sessions, alone or in a group, covering the basics of the faith and what the service involves.
- Be baptised. This normally happens during a Sunday service, with the congregation there. You can invite family and friends.
- Carry on. Baptism is a beginning. The church will go on helping you to grow.
Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
How different churches do it
- Church of England. Adults are baptised (the same thing as being christened) and normally confirmed by a bishop at the same service or soon afterwards. Water is usually poured over your head at the font, though some churches offer full immersion.
- Catholic Church. Adults prepare over several months through a process called the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, often shortened to RCIA, and are usually baptised at the Easter Vigil, the night before Easter Sunday.
- Baptist, Pentecostal and many independent churches. They baptise believers by full immersion in a pool in the church, and sometimes in the sea or a river. You will often be invited to say briefly how you came to faith.
- Methodist, United Reformed and Church of Scotland. They baptise both infants and adults, usually by pouring or sprinkling water.
What will I be asked?
In every church you will be asked, in one form of words or another, whether you turn away from sin and whether you believe and trust in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. You are then baptised with water in that threefold name, as Jesus instructed.
Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I commanded you. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
Practical questions
- Cost. Churches do not charge for baptism.
- Clothes. For baptism at a font, wear what you like. For immersion, the church will advise; bring a towel and a change of clothes.
- Age. There is no upper limit. People are baptised in their eighties and nineties.
- Under 18. Churches will normally want a parent or guardian to agree.
- Sponsors. Some churches ask adults to choose one or two Christian friends to stand with them as sponsors or godparents.
If you were christened as a baby
You have already been baptised. Churches that baptise infants will invite you to affirm that baptism through confirmation and will not baptise you again. Churches that practise believers’ baptism would baptise you now.
What baptism means
We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.