Baptism is the Practice of the Local Church not the Parachurch

Last November 10,000 college students gathered in Texas A&M’s Reed Arena for ‘Unite Texas A&M,’ which is led by a UniteUS Christian parachurch “movement” that originated at Auburn University. The organization’s mission is to inspire young people through faith-driven gatherings: that unbelievers would find salvation, believers would find freedom from sin, and that students would find connection to local ministries and churches. The event itself was similar to other evangelical student gatherings (e.g., Louie Giglio’s annual Passion Conference) in that a band leads worship music followed by teaching from popular speakers. In a CBN interview, Tonya Prewitt, founder of UniteUS, reflected upon their initial meeting at Auburn University, “I remember standing at (the) baptisms after the Auburn event in the middle of thousands of students just praising God and thinking how can this stop? And it hasn’t. He keeps doing it, again and again.” To date, UniteUS has seen more than 70,000 students gather on 11 campuses representing 400 universities. “We’ve seen around 5,000 saved and close to 2,000 baptized,” Prewett added. “It’s truly indescribable.” The A&M event ended similarly with participants being baptized in the back of pickup trucks by the speakers following the gathering.¹ Prewett said UniteUS intentionally works to connect local churches with students for further discipleship.²

On one hand, there is MUCH here to be celebrated! I am grateful to God for Prewett’s vision for wanting revival within Generation Z and her successful efforts to get on different college campuses to share the good news of the gospel in an environment where young adults want to listen. I also applaud the strategy of wanting local churches to be involved with follow up with those who’ve made decisions. Indeed, one of UniteUS’s three main mission goals includes the local church. Hear me clearly, I hope UniteUS continues to make a gospel-impact on our nation’s college students! On the other hand, where I think well-meaning parachurch organizations like UniteUS step over the line is when they perform baptisms outside the local church context.³ While doing so might display a deep devotion, it also reveals a shallow ecclesiology. Unfortunately, many of these organizations have been shaped by a low-church, anti-historical, and theologically-lite evangelical revivalism which advocates for baptismal practices divorced from the local church. That’s why some parachurch organizations, especially high school and college ministries, will host their own stand-alone baptism services officiated not by pastors, deacons, or other representatives of the local church but parachurch directors, leaders, and members.

Unfortunately, this misses the fullness of what baptism represents. Both biblically and historically, baptism is the initiatory rite not only of entering the faith but the local church. As such, only the local church was given the authority to baptize new believers.⁴ This didn’t just stop with the New Testament age but continued on. The Apostolic Constitutions, a 4th century eight-book collection from Antioch, is one of the earliest documents on church order. Its contents had been passed down from earlier generations of Christians that some argue date back to the apostles themselves. As to baptism, it notes: We do not permit to the rest of the clergy to baptize — as, for instance, neither to readers, nor singers, nor porters, nor ministers — but to the bishops and presbyters alone, yet so that the deacons are to minister to them therein.⁵

Throughout virtually the entire history of Christianity, the only people authorized to regularly baptize people into the faith were church officers. Why? Because, among other things, baptism is tied to church membership. No one baptizes people merely into the Invisible Church but real, local churches for whom elders are responsible to shepherd and to whom the congregation is accountable. Thus, baptism is all the more the domain of the local church. Some might object saying this is the kind rationale only found Catholic and Orthodox traditions but not of Protestant Christianity. On the contrary, this aspect of ecclesiology continued well after the Reformation. Here is a sample of current Protestant denominational beliefs about baptism:

• Presbyterian Westminster Confession of Faith: “Baptism and the Supper of the Lord: neither or which may be dispensed by any but a minister of the Word, lawfully ordained.”⁶

• Reformed Belgic Confession: “There should be ministers or pastors to preach the Word of God and administer the sacraments.”⁷

• Anglican Book of Common Prayer: “Holy Baptism is appropriately administered within the Eucharist as the chief service on Sunday or other Holy Day. In this way the Congregation may welcome the newly baptized into Christ’s Church, and may be reminded of the benefits which they themselves received and the profession which they made in Holy Baptism. The Bishop, when present, is normally the celebrant.”⁸

• Southern Baptist Baptist Faith and Message: “Being a church ordinance, [baptism] is prerequisite to the privileges of church membership and to the Lord’s Supper.”⁹

It goes without saying that in virtually every Protestant denomination, baptism is regarded as an ordinance of the local church and therefore it is under her domain. This is why Southern Baptist leaders like Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman say, “Baptism is the entrance marker of a converted person into the membership and accountability of a local church,”¹⁰ and Baptist author Bobby Jamieson adds, “Ordinarily, therefore, it is local churches who have the authority to baptize. Since baptism is performed by an individual, the church acts through a representative. But baptism is still a church’s act.”¹¹

Said again, biblically and historically, baptism is the local church’s practice because it falls under her domain and authority. It shows an accountability between a church’s leadership and congregation. That’s why baptizing outside the local church subverts this relationship. One irony at UniteUS is that some of the speakers were pastors of local churches who baptized young men and women who weren’t committing to be a part of their specific congregation and under their leadership. In baptizing, those pastors were unwittingly undermining the very relationship of the local church they represent. A better pathway would be to exhort those individuals to be baptized by the local church they wanted to commit to and live out their newfound faith in a localized communion of saints. They should experience a baptism that initiates them into their church overseen by pastors and others who are committing to grow them in their baptismal vows of following Jesus given before the very congregation devoted to their continued discipleship.

Yet, in my estimation, because of influences like social media, merch, and music deals, sometimes believers can get enamored with this or that “made to order” parachurch ministry at the expense of their own local church – where podcasters, who parishioners have never met, are given more real estate in the hearts of the people than their pastors. But parachurch literally means to come alongside the church. The argument for their existence is that they serve the church in capacities that any one local church couldn’t effectively do by itself. In principle, I’m all for them. Acts 29 Network, Truth Unites, The Bible Project, and The Gospel Coalition are examples of parachurch organizations that serve that purpose well. But there are other groups who, if they were more self-reflective about their practices, would realize they’ve moved from coming alongside the church to overtaking her. In my humble opinion, when parachurch ministries perform baptisms, they move from supporting the church to supplanting the church.¹²

I’ll say it again. I’m rooting for UniteUS. They’ll be showing up at my alma mater Baylor University this spring. It’s worth reaffirming their vision, as daughter of the founder, Madison Prewett Troutt said, “We want to make sure that these college students get plugged into a local church and that it doesn’t just stop at the event.”¹³ Yes ma’am! I wish them the best. Indeed, you can add my sentiments to any parachurch ministry: Cru, Student Mobilization, YoungLife, RUF, WorldVision, Compassion International, Acts 29 Network, HCPN, and others. But I’m rooting for them to assist the church not replace her. I’m rooting for them to be as passionate and committed to the local church, the institution Jesus did establish and promise would endure to the end of the age, as they are their own organization which Jesus did not establish or give those same promises. One of the ways those ministries can do that is by letting the local church be responsible for baptizing its own members and encouraging those they influence to do the same.¹⁴

1. https://www.kbtx.com/2024/11/01/unite-texas-am-draws-10000-students-reed-arena-worship-event/
2. https://cbn.com/news/us/10000-students-pack-texas-am-arena-hundreds-born-again-jesus-changing-lives
3. I am using “local church” to denote the visible, institutional church as opposed to the invisible Universal Church.
4. The pushback advocates a baptismal practice for any one at any time in any place by any believer. “C’mon Yancey, isn’t this the mandate of the Great Commission? Is not Philip the patron saint of this position with his ad hoc baptism of the Ethiopian court official in some watery place off the road in Acts 8:26-40?” However, one could make a good argument that the audience of Jesus’ Commission is specifically the apostles (cf. Mt. 28:16) as they are the literal witnesses to Jesus. Peter confirms this role when he says in Acts 10:40-42, “But God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.” The apostles represent the leadership of the church being its foundational officers (cf., Eph. 2:20) and later establish the regular church offices of pastor and deacon (1 Timothy 3:1-13, Titus 1:5-9, 1 Peter 5:1-4; pastor can also be called elder or bishop). Additionally, the Ethiopian’s baptism was unique being that: 1) Philip was arguably an officer of the early church. Acts 6:5 records Philip being chosen by the apostles as a “servant” or “deacon”; he also held the title of “evangelist.” 2) He was sent by angelic revelation to an individual who, after conversion, would 3) be returning to a country with no apostolic church presence. Thus, Philip’s baptism in Acts 8 was descriptive of God’s salvation uniquely coming to the Gentiles at large and not prescriptive of the normative process for Christian baptism. The prescriptive baptisms we see through the rest of the book of Acts are done by apostolic teams initially commissioned by the local church (cf., Ac. 2, 10, 16, 18, 19).
5. Apostolic Constitutions, Book III
6. Chapter 27, Westminster Confession of Faith
7. The Belgic Confession, Article 30
8. https://bcp2019.anglicanchurch.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/BCP-2019-MASTER-5th-PRINTING-05022022-3.pdf; Book of Common Prayer, ‘Baptism and Confirmation,’ 160.
9. https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/; this is the same for both 1963 and 2000 versions
10. Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman, Baptist Foundations, 124
11. https://www.9marks.org/article/baptism-is-a-churchs-act/#_ftn1
12. I recognize exceptions such as certain missionary parachurch organizations that may engage in baptisms where there is little to no gospel presence (similar to Philip and the Ethiopian). However, most of these organizations seek to help establish local churches for the regular practice of ministry.
13. https://cbn.com/news/us/will-be-called-greater-awakening-unite-us-organizers-discuss-mighty-move-holy-spirit
14. For example, the following YoungLife discipleship manual recognizes the church’s domain over baptism: “Yet in Young Life, baptizing believers is beyond the scope of our authority as an organization. Young Life commissions staff people; but we do not ordain them. We do not confer upon our staff or leaders the authority to baptize believers. We defer to the Church Universal and its different denominations when it comes to this sacrament.” (Donna Hatasaki, How to Help Kids Grow: Making Disciples Through Young Life, 2016, p. 28)