After releasing the first suite of curriculum resources based on Pastor Daniel Erlander’s A Place for You: My Holy Communion Book, it was time to dive into his baptism resources. Pastor Dan wrote and illustrated two baptism manuals that thousands of Lutherans already had in their church offices, Sunday school classrooms, and homes. In 1996 Pastor Dan created Let the Children Come: A Baptism Manual for Parents and Sponsors. Its opening pages feature his handwritten Preface, which ends with the prayer “May we live wet!”

He published Water Washed and Spirit Born: A Baptism Manual for Youth and Adults a decade later in 2006. (This book includes one of my favorite images by Pastor Dan—a time capsule! What a gift that we can see his illustrators about biblical events and science fiction!)

We assembled another terrific team of writers, scriptwriters, animators, and designers to produce a collection of works to support baptismal education across the lifespan. Because we had baptism manuals to work with, we decided to give this curriculum collection an overarching name—Come to the Water.

We emphasized developing resources for kids to use since the current manuals were designed for youth adults. The result was a 10-minute animated video, along with a board book titled Come to the Water, Little One by Pastor Mary Lindberg. For older kids, Pastor Rebecca Ninke developed a wide array of interactive content using text and illustrations from the original baptism manuals by Pastor Dan. Her additional content paired with this original work combine to make Come to the Water: An Interactive Baptism Manual for Kids.

These resources for kids paired with the accompanying sessions in the Come to the Water Leader Sourcebook mean that leaders have an array of tools to teach kids of all ages about baptism, and not just when someone is getting baptized.

Baptismal education for youth and adults springs to life with additional resources in the Leader Sourcebook—sessions for youth and adults, self-study materials, Bible studies, and an intergenerational event. Theological backgrounds, a glossary, and a biography of Pastor Dan round out these Leader Sourcebook offerings.

And like we did with A Place for You resources, our designers adjusted the skin tone shading to reflect a wider range than the hatching technique Pastor Dan used.

Whether you’ve been leading baptismal education for decades or just getting started, we know that our Come to the Water collection based on Pastor Dan’s baptism manuals has something that will make your planning easier, livelier, and richer!

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