A private school in North Carolina apologized after baptizing over 100 children without asking for their parents’ permission last week.
Northwood Temple Academy, a Christian school located in Fayetteville, posted on Facebook on Sept. 1, “I feel it in my bones; you’re about to move! Today we had over 100 middle and high school students spontaneously declare their faith and get baptized today. We will have more pictures of these powerful moments posted over the next couple of days!”
The Hill reports:
“That morning, three students had their scheduled baptisms at the school as part of Spiritual Emphasis Week. The offer was then extended to other students who had not been scheduled. More than 100 students in total were baptized.
Renee McLamb, the head of the school, sent families a letter to explain.
‘The Spirit of the Lord moved, and the invitation to accept the Lord and be baptized was given, and the students just began to respond to the presence of the Lord,’ McLamb said in the letter.”
The school stated that it usually notifies parents and invites them to take part in any baptisms that take place on campus. “It was not the intention of any faculty member to do anything behind a parent’s back or in any kind of secret way.”
“‘I do understand that parents would desire to be a part of something so wonderful happening in the lives of their children, and so I apologize that we did not take that into consideration in that moment,’ McLamb said. ‘I pray that at the end of the day, we will all rejoice because God truly did a work in the lives of our students.’
McLamb told the paper that the school should have given students a chance to contact parents and ask permission. ‘We were not expecting such an overwhelming response to the message that was spoken, but as a mother, I certainly can empathize with why some parents were upset,’ she said.”
While most of the parents contacted by McLamb were reportedly glad, a few of them were not happy with the decision. Some of the students who were baptized had already been baptized, and families were concerned that the first baptism would be undone by the second.
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