Café Church on Sunday 2 October at St Mary’s, Bridgwater was a little different to the usual service. Three girls, aged 8 to 11, were baptised in a hot tub by Revd Suse Osmond, vicar of St Mary’s.
Suse said, “This was a real thing to celebrate: the sense of welcoming children to the church, the significance for them, and making them feel really valued. We decided to do a full immersion baptism because that was something they felt they wanted to do. It felt more significant to them.
“The whole morning was absolutely amazing. It was such a privilege and I felt particularly moved that three young people said they wanted to be baptised, that their faith is important to them, and that they have started on this journey of friendship with God. The whole morning felt full of joy. For me, the most significant part was making the sign of their cross on their foreheads with the oil that’s been blessed by the bishop. It symbolises us all belonging as part of the same community, as we use the same oil across the diocese. When I put the oil on their heads, I had such a sense of the Holy Spirit. I felt how awesome it is that they are becoming part of this community of faith, and the significance of this in their lives: that they’ve invited God to be part of their journey, and God is never going to leave them.”
Suse looked into hiring a full immersion font for the baptisms but there was nowhere local that could deliver one. So instead, they used a hot tub provided by a local company. Suse said, “It was quite funny having a hot tub in the church, but it was brilliant because it was really warm. They rolled it up in a big trailer. It was delivered by a father and son, and they don’t usually stay for the set-up, but we had such good conversations with them, and they ended up staying for the full four hours. They’d never brought a hot tub to a church before.”
One of the girls is from a family that comes to Grub’s Up, a weekly after-school meal and craft club at St Mary’s. The family started coming to Grub’s Up because the girl told her mother she wanted to start coming to church.
Another of the girls also told her mother she wanted to start coming to church, and her mother came along with her. Suse said, “They’ve been on an amazing journey where they’re now both involved, her mum is our café manager and is about to be confirmed next week. The daughter will get confirmed next week as well.”
The other girl’s parents have been part of St Mary’s Church for about 18 months. Suse said, “She came to me and said she really wanted to get baptised, she wanted to tell people how much she loved God and about her friendship with Jesus.
“One thing that struck me is that we’re really starting to see the fruit now of some of the seeds we’ve sowed over the past few years, particularly going into schools every week and doing collective worship, developing relationships and journeying with people.
“We did the baptisms at our Café Church service as it’s the kind of expression of worship the children could relate to more than the more formal service. Our Café Church is really growing, and we had to get loads of tables and chairs out because of the number of people that came.”