 Hello, this is Pastor Vlad and if you are deciding to get water baptized, I'm here to answer a few basic questions. What is water baptism and why do I need to get water baptized? Water baptism is something that follows our decision to follow Jesus Christ. It's publicly confessing that we have decided to follow Jesus and water baptism is public declaration of an inward decision. It symbolizes when we go down into water, we identify with Jesus as though we're dying to our old life and when we come back from the water we identify with Jesus when he rose from the dead that we are beginning to walk in the newness of life. The scripture I want to read to you is when Jesus got baptized. Yes, Jesus got baptized too. In Matthew chapter 3 verse 16 it says when he had been baptized Jesus came up immediately from the water and behold the heavens were opened and he saw a spirit of God descending like a dove and aligning on him. I want you to see in here that Jesus was baptized. Jesus was baptized when he was an adult about 30 years of age. So this answers a question that many people ask, you know, I was baptized as a child. Does that count? It's good that you get baptized as a child. It was your parents decision to dedicate you to God but that's not the kind of baptism that we are talking about here today. The kind of baptism we're talking about here today is the one that you make the decision to follow Jesus Christ. When you were a baby you were not in control of the decision. You didn't make the decision. Now that you have grown up, now that you mature, now that you have repented of your sins and put your trust in Jesus Christ you have to follow the pattern of Jesus and get baptized as an adult of you declaring your decision to follow Jesus. Another thing is that when you were baptized as a child you got sprinkled with water but in here we read that Jesus came out of water. He came up from the water meaning he was fully immersed. Word baptism in Greek means immersion and so you were really not immersed, well thank God you were not immersed because you were a little infant, you were died, but the kind of baptism that Jesus modeled to us is he went fully into water and he came out from the water and he is asking us to do the same. All the followers of Jesus Christ since his baptism were always following that requirement or that encouragement that Jesus said for us and so I would like you to join us in getting water baptized in our church. So a few little things to remember about water baptism is that we have them once a month in our church, we could record a short little video of you saying how you came to Christ and I know you're afraid of speaking in public and everything but we would love to hear how you came to church, how you came to Christ and that video will be 30 to 20 seconds long where you can share briefly how you came to Christ and how you came to our church and then on the day of baptism we'll give you a t-shirt that you will invite your family and friends and create a huge celebration and we'll baptize you, give you a beautiful certificate so that you can begin those steps of obedience and steps of walking with Christ and so if you're ready for baptism and you're ready to take the decision let us know we would love to take you to the next step in this way. God bless you and remember better is not good enough the best is yet to come.