Dr. Bernard, UPCI churches and pastors.

We're naturally very passionate about fulfilling the Great Commission, and we've made no bones

about it, to put it frankly, that we're, baptism is very important.

We consider that to be part of the plan of salvation. So you go to a

UPCI church, the pastor is going to preach about baptism. He's going to urge you to be baptized

if you haven't been baptized before. So that leads to sometimes a conundrum for pastors because we're

very interested in ministering to people of all ages, including children. So on many occasions, the situation arises where a child

expresses the desire to be baptized in Jesus' name. But for whatever reason, often it's when

the parents are not in the church, the parent prohibits the child from, the pastor from

baptizing the child. So it puts the pastor in a tough

spot because they want to minister to the child. They want to see that child saved if that kid

is old enough that they feel like that they're they have responsibility or they're able to

take responsibility for their spiritual condition. You know, their question arises, then what should a pastor do in that

situation? You probably encountered this yourself. How did you navigate situations like that?

The short answer is I think we need to obtain parental consent to baptize a minor. Now, there's a

conflict of values, you might say. On the one hand,

we do believe baptism is part of salvation. And so we're concerned if somebody isn't baptized,

they're not going to be saved. On the other hand, we do respect the right appearance. And we

respect the government. So let's look at that point first.

First of all, we do respect parental rights. That's clear in the Bible that children should obey

their parents. And there's a related principle. Jesus gave us the golden rule, do unto others as you

would have them do unto you. So let's say we're a parent.

...