Pastor Kevin J. Adams joins the show to chat about his new book, Living Under Water: Baptism as a Way of Life.

TRANSCRIPT

0:02

Hey everyone. Welcome to Jessup Think. I'm your host, Mark Moore

0:05

and your co host, Rex Gurney.

0:06

And Rex. We're so excited to have a local pastor in the studio today, Kevin Adams here to talk about his new book on baptism.

0:13

And it's rare that I have a published author that will come and knock on the door of my office to give me a copy of his book. Yeah, especially one that's published by earnings. And so I really appreciated that and really appreciate having him on the show today.

0:26

Yeah, we're excited to have Kevin, he's the founding and senior pastor of granite springs church here in Lincoln. And his new book is entitled, living underwater baptism as a way of life. Enjoy the show. Well, Kevin, thank you so much for joining us on the show.

0:48

Well, this is my pleasure. I've heard about you guys international presence, and I'm just glad to be a small part of

0:55

it. Well, usually, when we have a guest that you know, is a nationally published author, we have to, you know, spend a lot of money to get them here, but you just live right down the street, and

1:07

we're happy to have you're in the States. You're in

1:11

a remote guest.

1:12

Yeah, it's very good gift.

1:14

That's right. And excited to dive into your book and a book on baptism. Which did you think you would ever write a book on baptism?

1:24

I never thought I'd write any books. Yeah. So and then to say one on baptism, it would seem very unlikely. Yeah.

1:31

How did how did the book come about? How?

1:34

Yeah, so our church is always we have about maybe 30 Different denominational backgrounds, and we have maybe 12 to 15, or depending on the era, more countries of origin, birth places. So we're always looking for ways to bring people together in a way that doesn't dumb things down. So a few years ago, we spent a year in the Psalms, because if you're a Christian, who's orthodox or Catholic, or Protestant or Baptist or whatever, you're pro Psalms, and then we talked about a whole year of Scripture memory, like same thing, all those traditions, you said, Are you for scripture memory? Yes, we are. And then we looked around and said is what else is there? And we talked about baptism, I remember introducing this to our staff and say, I think we should spend a whole year talking about baptism. And they had this look of the fear of God. And we think that's a terrible idea. But we ended up doing it anyway. And it turned out to be quite a gift. So the book began with that, I'd say,

2:30

Yeah, that's great. So kind of birthed out of the local community. Yeah, right.

2:34

Speaking of local community, one of the one of the real joys of reading this book is, you know, I know that you have to like either lightly fictionalized or try to not make, you know, the campus that you're talking about, have a name with it, but we actually all know what their campus is. And we know half the people you're talking about, and that was actually fun to read about. Read about those those places. And those people? Oh, that's

2:59

great. Rex, it has stories from every era, and every continent, almost, I think, not Antarctica, but all the others. And it's fun to have a local feel as well.

3:09

When it was interesting, yeah. When I was reading, I could kind of feel I probably felt maybe the same way the staff was feeling when you brought that up, like, okay, yeah, it got me thinking of why. Why is baptisms such a divisive issue? Or why has it been a lightning rod? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Like, why do you think baptism in particular, has been something instead of bringing the church together, as in some in some times and some areas has actually torn the church apart?

3:40

Boy, that's a great question mark. And I can only give yo