S04 Ep38 100 students baptized as the Spirit of the Lord moved but parents were upset?

Welcome to Man Talk, a ministry sponsored by TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, where we're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination and to point men to their God-assigned roles. Now here's your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr. Will, good afternoon, sir. God bless you, Roy. Folks, welcome back to Man Talk Radio Podcast.

It's good to have you with us today. We've got a topic that we're going to hit a few headlines, one specifically that's happened here in North Carolina. And we thought this would be a nice little break so you kind of know in case you haven't seen the things around what's going on with Christian schools, Christian workplaces, that sort of thing.

So you can get a little bit of the environment you may see or hear much about just on the public radio or TV. So, Will, the headlines, 100 students baptized as the Spirit of the Lord moved at North Carolina school. The firestorm that followed couldn't even dim the joy. Well, you know, Roy, when I look at that, the first thing, question I asked was, how if the Spirit of the Lord can move on a person then he can move in these kids. Amen.

Because they are of the age to understand the difference. And, you know, when the parents bring their children, you know, to a Christian school that they expect that they're going to be Christian activities. Yes, yes. There's going to be things that are going on in the school. Things that make you go, hmm.

That line up with the Bible. So, you know, you have these things that take place. So I'm sure they had to look over, you know, some things in reference to what the school is all about, the Christian values, those things like that before they would even be accepted. And, of course, being from that area, not originally, but having dwelt in that area a long time in Fayetteville, you have a lot of different and variation of people and culture because of the military.

Yeah, very large military base. So you have people from all over the United States, South, North, East, Midwest, and such and such. So you have a blend of people, thus you have a blend of lifestyles. And, of course, with the lifestyle come the ideology. You can't forget the ideology.

Right, right. The cool part here is this is a Christian school, right? And so they said two middle school students and one high school student were scheduled to take part in a baptism on September 1. But at the end of the chapel service, many others joined. School officials celebrated decisions on Facebook. And it appears that maybe, I don't know if the school leader, whoever it was, said, I feel it in my bones, you're about to move.

They said, quoting Spirit Move, a song by Bethel Music and Callie Heligenthal. Today we had over 100 middle and high school students spontaneously declare their faith and get baptized today. But a small group of parents hit back at the school saying administrators were out of line for allowing kids to get baptized without them being present. And, of course, Roy, let's inject here that we were talking about earlier that you have parents who are non-believers who send their children to this believing high school, middle school, so that they can be exposed to the things perhaps that they were not hoping that they would not be possibly exposed to things like drugs, alcohol, you know, those things that are more prevalent within the public school system. Intent of a good, clean, wholesome environment was what they were after, right? It's interesting, Will, when I was reading this article, I couldn't help but think it doesn't matter what you do, doesn't matter who's doing it, there's always going to be someone complaining. And we've gotten in the, I believe we've gotten in the mindset of the glass is half empty rather than half full.

You know, look at the positives. I mean, you've got a young child that's middle school, high schooler that's dedicating their life to following Christ and making a public confession of that or rededication. You know, granted, I'm sure I would have been disappointed had I missed my child getting baptized, especially if it was a first-time decision and not a rededication.

But then immediately the joy would come overflowing the fact that they had made a decision. And it's interesting with this article that no one saw the firestorm coming, and I'm sure we only got a small sampling of some of the commentary and narrative that came back from a few of the parents. Exactly. And, you know, I think when some parents talked about, you know, not being there to witness it, I think as you stated, that would be a thing that I think would probably make me a little bit upset.

But we have to also look at what we talked about earlier. That the parents who are unsaved, you know, saying, well, how dare you do this to my child if, you know, I don't want them to be baptized. And again, it's a Christian school. However, I would want to be present for this event in my child's life. Also, I would have wanted to make sure that they are understanding exactly what baptism is, why people do it.

That is not a requirement and that it, here are the key words, Will, and that it is their choice to do so and that they're not just following friends or feeling pressured to do something they're not ready to do. talking and walking Christian men's ministry would like to invite you to our monthly Men's Breakfast held every 1st, 3rd, and 5th Friday of each month. of each month. You enjoy fun fellowship in the Word of God as we break bread together. The meetings are held at First Christian Church, 1130 North Main Street, Kernersville, North Carolina.

We start promptly at 6 30 a.m. and have a hard stop at 8 o'clock a.m. Come join your hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr. And I think you have some of that both, Roy. You have, you know, my friend Susie did it so, you know, I should go up here. Even though that the Spirit may not move on them, you know, Susie or Sharon or whatever their name is may have had a different experience. And so as the Lord, she was going through her things that she was thinking about maybe in her life, and now God led her to this point and said, okay, this is an act of following the Lord in baptism, you know, to show others your confession by mouth faith that you are also letting everyone know around you that I'm doing this because of my confession, not because of my salvation.

Right. You know, it's amazing to think about in today's time there's a hundred young folks that walked down the aisle and made a commitment or a rededication. And I don't know what the population of the school is, but it's just amazing that even the person that was leading, I think, felt that something was different that day. And just, just quite amazing, you know, when the Holy Spirit moves it's quite touching and just it's quite touching. The Spirit of the Lord moved and invitation to accept the Lord and be baptized was given and the students just began to respond to the presence of the Lord. MacLamb wrote, and she told CBN News, that's where this article came from, MacLamb told CBN News the parents were not upset about their children giving their life to Christ, but rather that they missed the opportunity to be a part of it.

So that must have been the overwhelming response, was they missed the opportunity to be a part of it. Exactly. And you know, I get that.

Oh, I do too. We've got kids and children. Speaking of kids, remind me to come back to that. We've got children and we understand what all that means about you want to be there for every monumental event or happening in their life and share it with them and be a part of it. You know, those, those especially moment like this, this is eternal, an eternal decision that you want to make sure you're a part of.

Real quick. I was just gonna say, you know, and of course that's part of spiritual development within the child, so that's giving them that avenue that they can continue to go down having had this experience. Right, right. This is a side note, totally unrelated to this, but one day I was in Sam's and the lady heard me say kid. She said, hey, that's a, that's a billy goat. Don't say, don't say a kid. You need to call your children, children. Just a little side note, she was, she was a few generations ahead of me and she made it very clear.

It's been years ago and I had my children were very small. Every time I say kid, I remind, she comes back that I'm supposed to say children. So for those of you that say kids, let's get on board and not talk, call them billy goats, let's call them children.

So anyways, a little side note there, need a little bit of humor. Will, what else do you think about this article? Well, you know, there's a lot of things in it, Roy, I think that we could probably venture out and talk about, but the overwhelming one that if you go to a Christian school then, you know, there's going to be activities and of course, you know, he says in the paragraph here, we've had many baptisms here but with never this much attention. So that tells me that, like we probably talked about earlier, you probably had some parents who were non-believers and as a result of that, that sort of ruffled their feathers because they weren't informed of whether or not they wanted their children to be baptized or not. And again, it comes down to an individual choice. But see, if you don't know the word, then you're going to take on that mentality. Right, right.

Yeah. You know, there's one other quote from McGlansies, I think it is extremely significant, not so much in light of the pressures of culture right now, but all the statistics that are coming out right now from mental health institutions that because of the pandemic, self-harm is on the rise, suicide rate among teens is an all-time high. So here we are having a time at school where there can still be joy in the midst because Jesus is our peace. Wow, I think that speaks volumes, you know, because if we want our children to be exposed to the gospel and we're sending them to a Christian school, then again we should expect that there are going to be some things and activities that take place in the school that we should be on board with, otherwise we should not have sent our kids to a Christian school.

That's exactly right. And one other substitute teacher was making an observation, Will, said, I knew that God was dealing with an 11th grader. The sub wrote to McClam, I knew that thinking back, had he had to go get permission, he might have missed that moment of decision-making.

So she entered an email that it was a perfect day, McClam Express. So folks, that's pretty amazing when you see it in our school system today, a private school obviously, but hey, God is on the move and is still real, still here, and still available for you to follow and make a decision to be a part of. Amen. You know, it's an individual choice, just like it's an individual walk. We are not walking after the flesh anymore, we are walking after the Spirit, as Romans 8 and 9 talks about.

So if we are walking in the Spirit, we're not fulfilling the lust of the flesh. Folks, have a great day. And we love you.

Amen. As we conclude today's show, TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, are building a community of men to be servant leaders in their home, communities, churches, and work environment. Check us out on our website for upcoming events and regular scheduled meetings. Don't forget to send us an email for topics that you would like us to visit in the future. Thank you for joining us today on Man Talk. Visit us at TAWCMM.com.