What does the “Baptist” bit mean?

First and foremost we identify as Christians, people who do their best to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and believe that He: lived, taught, died on a cross and was resurrected on the third day after his execution. However, whilst we do many things in a similar way to other Christian churches, there are some things we do a bit differently. This is where the “Baptist” bit comes in. The word Baptist comes from the word baptism which in English means immerse or to wash. Baptists are one of the many different denominations of Christianity. There are three main differences between Baptist Churches and other Christian denominations:

• A Baptist Church does not christen or baptise babies or small children. This is because we believe that someone must make a personal choice about their faith that no-one else can do on their behalf, and should be able to share with others their reasons for wanting to be baptised.
   
• Baptist churches are also structured differently to other Christian churches such as the Roman Catholic Church or the Church of England. Baptist churches have something called a church membership. This is where people, who are Christians, choose to make themselves accountable to the leadership of the church they attend and agree to hold the church accountable too. They commit to regularly attending services as well as praying for the church and its leaders. This also allows them to be part of something called the Church Meeting. This meeting is where decisions regarding the church are made. Some decisions are delegated to the leadership team to make, and other more every day decisions are delegated to the church’s minister. Baptist churches have this structure because we believe that all people are equally able to hear from God and that the minister of the church is someone who has been chosen to perform a role. This is in contrast to the idea of a priest, someone who acts as a intermediary between the people and God. This means that anyone in a Baptist church can lead our ordinances of communion (eucharist) or baptisms.
   
• Each Baptist church is independent of other churches and does not sit under a bishop or an archbishop. Some Baptist churches choose to be interdependent with other Baptist churches and become part of groups with them in. The Baptist Union of Great Britain is one example of these kinds of groups.