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United Methodists are a baptized people – water washed and Spirit born.

On Jan. 10, churches throughout the Baltimore-Washington Conference celebrated and remembered on the Baptism of the Lord Sunday.

Their observances echoed many of the things learned at Bishop Schol’s Day Apart last fall, which centered around the sacrament of Baptism, and many congregations used liturgical and other resources created by conference clergy for the new Immersion Series, "This I Vow" (www.bwcumc.org/thisivow).

For many, the worship time was a chance to remember and build upon holy moments of the past.

Many of the churches placed their baptismal fonts, decorated with flowing blue material, in the center of the worship space and invited people to interact with the water in rituals designed for remembrance.

Some congregations, like Severna Park, Franklin and New Covenant UMCs and Dundalk Cooperative Parish encouraged people to take smooth stones as mementos of the worship.

Some of the observances contained lighthearted elements.

At Glyndon UMC a spirit of playfulness permeated the service. "We used the liturgy in the hymnal with the new wording and gave a super-soaker (water gun) to the kids to remind the congregation of their baptism. It got a little messy when one kid was trying to drill her older sister in the pew," said the Rev. Norman Obenshain.

"In the first service I tried to just lightly rain on the children but the thing had too much power and I got the organist at our new pipe organ. She was not happy drying out her music and wiping down the keyboard," he confessed. "It was the "Super-soaker of Salvation."

Some of the congregations on Jan. 10 used the children’s sermon as time to teach about baptism. At Mount Olive UMC in Prince Frederick, the Rev. Patricia Berry poured water over their hands and into a basin amid giggles and splashing.

"Those children and youth who had already been baptized applied the water to each others’ forehead while repeating, ‘Remember that you are baptized and be thankful.’ Then the children and I invited the baptized adults to participate," Berry said.

"This was a light-hearted, joyful time of celebration and remembrance which led to requests to schedule baptisms by those who were not yet baptized."

At Sandy Mount UMC, the pastor issued an invitation to anyone who wished to be baptized.

"A young mother, holding an infant, came to the baptismal font where the pastor was standing. We all assumed that she had answered the call to have her child baptized, but she wanted to be baptized," said Bruce Walgren.

"The image of the family standing together, with mother and child being baptized at the same time, is one we will never forget — there was not a dry eye in the sanctuary."

Several congregations, like Reisterstown and Pleasant Grove UMCs, used the baptism-themed worship as an opportunity to interpret the new United Methodist membership vows, which add "witness" to the ways members will support the church.

At Messiah UMC in Taneytown, "the service called the members to accountability to the Lord. It called upon us to remember the vows that we had long forgotten or chose to forget," said the Rev. Art Thomas. "This gave us the opportunity of making this public profession now that as adults we have become more serious about our faith."

At St. Paul UMC in New Windsor, the Rev. Helen Arminger said her sermon challenged people to ask themselves "if they stick their big toe in or do they immerse themselves in our discipleship journey? Our human tendency is to retreat, hesitate, and pull back to test the waters, instead of ‘going in deep’ on faith," she said.

Several other pastors took care crafting their sermons to invoke in listeners a willingness to witness to God’s love.

At Bethany UMC in Ellicott City, the Rev. David Simpson focused his preaching on the action of the Holy Spirit in the sacraments. "The essential message was, ‘You are a child of God, the Spirit dwells within you, you have the power to overcome, remember your baptism,’" he said. "We also used it as a launch for a series on evangelism for which the key verse for the series is Acts 1:8: ‘you shall be my witnesses.’"

The Rev. David Cooney of Towson UMC received "overwhelming affirmation" for a sermon he preached on "Identity Theft," speaking of how we are given identity in baptism and ways in which that identity is stolen from us (or given away) and how we can protect our identities as children of God.

At Linthicum Heights UMC the Rev. David A. Shank preached on mystery, memory and mission. Three people came forth to be baptized.

At Baldwin Memorial UMC, the Rev. Phil Tocknell was not sure how a ritual to help people remember their baptism "would go over." But the church was tremendously blessed, he said.

Like many congregations, they had a font of water in the front and people came up to touch the water and remember their baptisms.

"We have the traditional large font in the sanctuary, but we used a brass bowl that was purchased with the money from a memorial of a young solider who died in Iraq for our 9 a.m. service," Tocknell said. "It was nice to have something positive come out of a death in Iraq."