Are these the most important words in congregational worship?

Over recent months, the congregation of which I'm a member has conducted a steady stream of baptisms. Those baptised have included asylum seekers from Iran, adult Australians, and infants from various backgrounds. I have found myself increasingly struck by the gravity of the words used in the exchange between the minister and the congregation following the baptism. I've begun to wonder if they are the most important words used in congregational worship.

In the Uniting Church baptismal liturgy (taken from Uniting in Worship 2), the exchange begins with this question from the minister:

Friends in Christ, will you promise to maintain a life of worship teaching, witness and service so that he/she/they may grow to maturity in Christ?

And the congregation is invited to respond as follows:

With God's help, we will live out our baptism as a loving community in Christ: nurturing one another in faith, upholding one another in prayer, and encouraging one another in service until Christ comes.

William Temple

It was a commonplace of twentieth-century ecclesiology that church exists only for mission, or in the words of William Temple's famous aphorism, 'the church is the only organisation which exists for the sake of its non-members'.  I think this exchange in the baptismal service offers a parallel insight into the internal dynamics of church life: my participation in congregational life is oriented towards the other members of the congregation. It's a serious challenge and one that is, in my experience, difficult to live up to. Just as congregational life needs to be oriented to the church's call to serve the world, so my participation in congregational life is not to be oriented to meeting my needs or satisfying my preferences, but to building up the congregation that all may grow to maturity in Christ. (Of course any congregation will have its more vulnerable members whose own needs make it hard for them to be oriented to the needs of others. The inclusion of such members is, of course, another measure of the Christian character of any congregation.)

The exchange in the baptismal liturgy reminds us that the orientation of the church to the world begins with what could be called the 'congregational discipline' of orienting our congregational participation to the growth in grace and love of the whole congregation. In doing so, we are, of course, doing nothing other than what we are asked to promise to do: to live out our baptism. Is there any more basic way of understanding congregational life than a mutual commitment to 'live out our baptism'?

Whether or not these are the most important words spoken in congregational worship is an open question, but their importance can't be underestimated. And, it is good that we hear them whenever our congregations conduct a baptism. They warrant being the last words here:

With God's help, we will live out our baptism as a loving community in Christ: nurturing one another in faith, upholding one another in prayer, and encouraging one another in service until Christ comes.