By Stan Friedman
CHICAGO, IL (February 23, 2012) – Most members of Immanuel Covenant Church are immigrants from around the world, and their theological preference for baptism generally is immersion. That has sometimes presented a problem for the congregation because like most of the churches built by Swedes in the late 1940s, it has no baptistery.
Installing a baptistery would have been far too expensive for the church, which also lacked the space. “So we got creative,” says pastor Linnea Carnes.
They bought a horse trough.
“We had joked about using a horse trough, but when we heard that Grace Covenant Church had one, we borrowed it last year and baptized three women during a Sunday morning worship service,” says Carnes. “Doing baptism in the context of the Sunday morning worship was so meaningful that our leadership team decided to invest in one of our own.”
The new “baptismal” is a galvanized trough seven feet long, two and a half feet wide and two feet deep, says Carnes. The church added a bucket heater, a pump and some cloth to cover the sides.
The church recently baptized additional members, and Carnes says the service was meaningful. She suggested that other congregations in similar circumstances consider purchasing a trough.
Some already have. In addition to Grace, a few of Evangelical Covenant Church plants also have used horse troughs, says Nils Peterson of the Department of Church Growth and Evangelism.
Riverside Covenant Church in Rhode Island, another established congregation, has used one for several years. “It’s worked out fine,” says Pastor Brian Estrella.
The troughs have their own logistical issues, says Estrella. The length means people need to kneel at the front. Getting the water out can be problematic, so a member drilled a hole towards the bottom of one side that can be attached to a PVC pipe, Estrella says.
The congregation has loaned the trough and the white linen used to drape it to two other churches, including Christ Church in East Greenwich. That congregation used it once when bad weather prohibited them from baptizing members at a local park.
Riverside is not the first congregation where Estrella has served that has had to be creative about their baptistery. A non-Covenant church where he previously served on staff used an inflatable hot tub.
Estrella laughs as he points out, “We’re good Covenanters. We still do infant baptism.”
