The picture above shows somebody fresh (and still wet!) from their Baptism.  Baptists are one of the major network of churches in the UK and indeed worldwide. People often ask what is the difference between Baptists, Methodists, United Reform, Catholics, Church of England etc.  Well, the answer is that we share 95% of our beliefs - we all believe in Jesus and who he is, we use the same bible, we pray and we sing - often the same songs. But, we place a different emphasis on that remaining 5%

As Baptists we are, as you'd expect from the name, pretty keen on Baptism - in our case Baptism once we are old enough to know we have a real faith and want to start to live life with Jesus at the centre of it. We call that Believer's Baptism'.  People from the Church of England may also do that although they may have been 'baptized' as infants as well (we don't baptize babies, but we do give thanks to God for them and bless them). Catholics incidentally put a lot of emphasis on Mary the mother of Jesus which neither we nor the Church of England do at all.  And, the styles of our services differ - Baptists have a modern fairly informal style whilst the Church of England often has a much more formal style.  Baptists put the Bible right at the centre of things - if it's not in the Bible, then we don't do it! 

Unlike the Church of England or the Catholic churches, all Baptist churches are independent, so we can concentrate on following what Jesus said, without the equivalent of bishops or a pope to "set the rules". We are however part of the Baptist Union and this gives us all a common voice and sets out the core beliefs that we all share. And we are part of the Evangelical Alliance - evangelicals are simply churches that put the Bible at the heart of their teaching and emphasize a personal faith in Jesus. We fully subscribe to their Statement Of Faith.

What do we believe?

We believe in God. We believe that He created everything including you and I. We want to thank Him for that - at least every Sunday. We believe that He sent his son Jesus Christ down to Earth about 2000 years ago. During the 33 years of his life here, Jesus told us a great deal about God and how we can be really close to Him. Although Jesus was crucified by the authorities because they were afraid of him, he came back to life again, just like he had said he would. All of this, and lots more, is recorded in the Bible. We believe that through Jesus, the wrongs that we as humans all do are forgiven by God if we only ask Him to do so.

We think it's a real shame that lots of people around us aren't aware of this, while many of them are looking for a meaning in their lives. So, we really want to let our friends and neighbours in Lymington and Pennington hear about this and then tell them more about it. So, it's great that you are reading this so far!!!

We want to help people understand more about Jesus and what it means to follow him. And, for folk who like what they hear, we want to welcome them at any of our gatherings and if they want, to help them grow in their faith.

Although friends and neighbours are really important to us, we stretch out further to help people in this country and abroad. You can read about this on the Missionary page of this website.

So, whatever belief you may or may not have, we'd love to welcome you and at one of our gatherings.

A bit about Baptism itself....

Baptism doesn't make you a Christian but is is an important step in your journey through life with God at the centre of it. It's an outward visible sign of an inward commitment.  Baptism takes place a few times a year in our church, by full immersion in water, as part one of our normal services. We have a small pool (heated of course!) under our floor for just that purpose.  It's a really happy occasion for everyone as it represents a new start in life for that person.  From now on they can look forward to a new way of living with Jesus right at the centre of it.  Here's a clip of a Baptism taking place at Lymington Baptist Church.