Baptism, Grammar, Poetry, Sermons, travel

Christmas 2006

The family's news from 2007 is here...

Matthew's speech from the National Young Leaders Day is available here.

Words from the District Grammarian

Maverick

New Zealand's leading IT journalist Bruce Simpson publishes Internet News and Commentary every weekday.

Other material

Ian's LiveJournal Diary

Check out LiveJournal

RSS feeds

If you don't know what an RSS feed is, you probably don't want to look at this block. However, if you are interested, you can subscribe to my RSS feed at http://halliday.co.nz/halliday.rss, which is valid XML code at the time of writing.

KwMap.com - browse a keyword map of Baptism.co.nz

Security and Privacy

I take document and email security seriously. Until recently, email messages from me were guaranteed by a digital certificate issued by thawte's Web of trust containing my name. However, I am currently testing an email client which does not yet support certificates.

If you live in the Liverpool or Wirral areas, or anywhere else I visit, I will be pleased to certify your identity according to thawte's rules. I can offer 20 points at present, but expect this to increase to 25 points shortly.

I have published a Privacy Policy for this site.

Liturgy:
Christian worship & spirituality

liturgy: Christian worship and spirituality - serving individuals and communities seeking to have worship and spirituality that is vital, transforming, and faithful.

Because salad is good for you

Click the image above to see the current episode of "Geek Salad". Because salad is good for you.

Sermons

Ian's sermons page has been updated and now contains updated PDF files, including many presented since he returned to England. Click here for the sermons.

Mongolia

The new website for Sharing Christ Internationally is now available for your interest.

Since I created this site, its direction has changed a little: although I still proclaim one baptism and recognise my faith as the most important thing, this is only half the content of my web site, to be found on the left half of this page. However, the original purpose of this site remains intact...

this site provides links and information relating to baptism, one of the sacraments of the Church. Our Lord Jesus Christ was baptised in the River Jordan by John the Baptist, and the practice of baptism continues to this day. In the second chapter of Acts, Peter gave the instruction Repent and be baptised! and so we all should! However, there are those who only take half of this instruction on board, resulting in something that is incomplete. Without question, salvation is the most important part of the Christian faith.

the key parts of Christian baptism are that it is

with water
in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit

It is not the purpose of this web site to argue in favour of or against baptism by total immersion or by sprinkling, or to argue in favour of or against adult or infant baptism. However, we do take the view that there is one baptism for the remission of sins. We do not ever accept that it is appropriate to be baptised more than once. Together, baptism and holy communion are two sacraments of the church. Our understanding of a sacrament is that it is an outward and physical representation of something inward and spiritual. this site is here to promote and recognise that there is Christian faith among baptised people who use the internet on a regular basis and who maintain their own web sites. If you are a person who has been baptised and who maintains a personal web site or page, then you are welcome to join with others who have been baptised. We will provide a link to your site from our site if you ask us, provided that we do not deem the material on your site unsuitable. this does not mean that only specifically Christian sites will be linked: quite the reverse, in fact. We want to show that those who have been baptised have wide-ranging interests beyond Christian things alone.

Why a Baptism site?

this is an idea which I have been considering for a long time. Some time in 1997 or 1998, I heard a sermon in which the preacher was speaking about Martin Luther, who during his life had many dark days and times of doubt, apart from times of great inspiration. During his doubts, it was not his faith or his prayer or his study of God's word which kept his hope alive, but the memory that he was baptised. "Baptisatus sum" or "I am baptised" was his cry and his encouragement. At that time, I was wondering what way could be found of offering a non-threatening form of declaration of Christian belief on the world wide web, a medium still demonised by the mainstream media as nothing more than a source of pornography and recipes for explosive devices.

Why a New Zealand site?

the main international domain names I might have used: baptism.com, baptism.org and baptism.net have already been registered, although they do not appear to be in serious use at present. I chose not to used baptized or baptised in the domain name because my audience in different parts of the world may struggle with the spelling...while I am leaving baptist for the denomination of that name in the countries where it is not already registered. As I am in New Zealand and that is where my first supporters are, therefore, quite likely to be too, I have chosen this domain name, but like all internet addresses, it is accessible to everybody, regardless of their location. the same is true of the Christian message of salvation!

How to join us

Send me an email letting me know that you have been baptised with water and in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and tell me the URL and title of your web site. I will add your site to the list of sites here, along with a banner up to 10k if you send me one and if you offer a link back to this site.

The Jubilate Group Website
- a great source for lyrics and tunes of Christian hymns and songs.
There's a liturgy section too.

http://www.baptism.co.nz