The Baptist church in Nigeria is not your church’s mate at all. They would pass as one of the oldest church denominations all over the world and one of the first denominations to bring the word of God to Nigeria. Talking of the history of the Baptist church, the church consists of a gathered group of believers that subscribe to a doctrine that baptism should be performed only for professing believers and that it should be done by complete immersion.

With all of these in mind, I joined a few of my relatives to attend the Christ Baptist Church Gbagada. It wasn’t my first time at a Baptist church though. The calmness and serenity in the Baptist environment is one I deeply admire as it gives you the ability to meditate on the words from the preacher.

One look at the bulletin and I knew I was in for such a unique experience. Rather than the default items in the church order of worship which includes Call to worship, Praise and Worship, Child Dedication e.t.c, they had items like The Lord calls us to worship, We respond as we sing praises, The Lord speaks through his word e.t.c.

One random look round the church and I was reminded of several Black American films; the high ceilings, wooden pews, choristers who can’t wait to pull off the robe, mothers-of-faith with big hats and some uninterested young folks sitting at the back of the church.

The child dedication was one of those parts of the service I felt was overdone but thinking about it again, only a few things in life beat the joy of childbirth.

The message was on Joseph and the Christian Coat of many colours; one Bible story that never ceases to amaze me. It was rather strange listening to a message without the regular “preach it!”,  “Word” and those cliché phrases chipped in during the word at Pentecostal churches. One that re-assured the preacher that he still has the attention of his congregation and that, he was making “tweetable” points in his message. Unlike several other Baptist churches, the cleric at Christ Baptist Church Gbagada was referred to as pastor and not Bishop which of course, I found interesting

As expected, the service at Christ Baptist Church Gbagada ended with a long list of announcements regarding all the meetings to be held after the service but trust Church Crawler to be knowledgeable of times and seasons to know the perfect time to come in and when the time is up!

Editor