Southern Baptist Convention Churches

Southern Baptists inherit a radical Reformation perspective on the Lord's Supper and baptism that understands these sacred actions as ordinances and memorials. However a worship renewal movement among Southern Baptists has emphasized the presence of Christ in the faith of the recipient of the ordinance. Thus, ordinances are to be understood as vividly enacted symbols in worship that become powerful invitations for the worshiper to enter the saving sphere of God's gracious activity in the world. In the following article, the author describes the worship renewal in his local church. From the radical left-wing Reformation in sixteenth century Europe (e. g. , Zwingli and the Anabaptists) and the separatist Baptist movement of seventeenth century England came the emergence of an alternative way to look at the Lord's Supper and baptism, as ordinances (order or command) rather than sacrament. Although the word, sacrament, was used in some early British Baptist documents, ordinance very quic…