Today’s Roanoke, Virginia, Times carries an article about generational baptisms in the Ghent Grace Brethren Church there. Here is an excerpt–to read the entire article click here. Photo and article from Roanoke Times. EDITOR’S NOTE: “Fuzzy” Minnix is Odell, the husband of Janet Minnix, president of Women of Grace USA.
The baptism of Parker Minnix in Southwest Roanoke County’s Back Creek on a warm Sunday afternoon earlier this month marked the fifth generation of his family to be immersed there.
Parker, 7, was baptized by his grandfather, 73-year-old Fuzzy Minnix, a member of the Roanoke County School Board, whose pastor, the Rev. Zach Doppelt of Ghent Grace Brethren Church in Roanoke also waded into the slow-moving but chilly water.
“The physical baptism signifies a spiritual truth,” said Doppelt, who wore a black robe and sandals. “Grandpa Minnix is going to have the privilege and the honor of this tradition of grandfather baptizing grandson.”
Actually, it’s unclear who performed the first two Minnix baptisms in Back Creek, Minnix said. Family history has it that his father, George Minnix, was baptized in the creek at about the same spot — a bend in the shadow of a 20-foot-tall rock formation about a mile from U.S. 220 — in roughly 1920.
And the Minnix family isn’t sure who dunked Marker Lewis Minnix, the father of George Minnix, in about 1880.
Fuzzy Minnix recalled that he was baptized in Back Creek in 1946 at age 12 by the Rev. K.E. Richardson, then pastor of Clearbrook Grace Brethren Church. Daniel Minnix, Parker’s father, was baptized there by the grandfather on his mother’s side, the Rev. Thomas Hammers, a pastor in Indiana at the time. The year of that ceremony was about 1978 to 1980, Fuzzy Minnix estimated.