We baptized a whole bunch of people at the beach two days ago.
When we started our church, the ocean was our spot for this important spiritual declaration. We slipped into turning baptisms into a “church event” which eventually cost momentum, etc.
After that we moved baptism indoors so there would be a crowd to cheer for people being baptized. Worked pretty well for a dozen years, then we began getting requests to do outdoor baptisms (we’ve always done a few, especially in MiniChurches).
Last weekend we rented a beach park, threw an “unstructured picnic” with a baptism scheduled for mid afternoon. We were amazed.
Entire families got dunked. We had a few walk-ons from our church who only made up their mind while standing on the sand. Even some onlookers from the beach got baptized. And to top it all off, one guy arrived four hours late begging to be baptized–he’s a member who got stuck on a late flight and drove straght from the airport.
We’re back to the unstructured baptisms at the beach–with zeal! We’ll still baptize people in the building who request it, especially at Christmas and Easter, but we’re full-on for the public committment and the kicks it brings with it. We’ve come full circle.
4 responses so far ↓
1 WHisper // Sep 1, 2009 at 3:11 pm
Beautiful! Awesome! No words! What a declaration of faith. From a individual prayer to an all out display for all to see and participate in! Praise God for those that got baptized! Thank you pastor and staff for such a wonderful event!
2 Ben Rosenzweig // Sep 1, 2009 at 3:54 pm
We tried to start a church on the sand at Venice Beach in Calif. The greatest moment of that endeavor was while giving an altar call, a surfer sitting on a nearby dune raised his hand to receive Christ. He hadn’t even heard the sermon (imagine that). I motioned for him to come over and asked if he was willing to kneel there in the sand to receive Christ. He did, and then I had a thought. Would he want to get baptized right then. He said yes. He was in a wet suit, and I was in my shirt and dockers……Oh well, I didn’t want to miss that moment. We went out in the surf and I baptized him….what a glorious day….that was probably 25 years ago….but it is still alive in my memory.
3 Norman Nakanishi // Sep 5, 2009 at 11:55 am
Hey Ralph,
Right on! We’ve done those swings, but going from baptisms at public pools and beaches to entirely in small groups, and now back to a hybrid. 82 are being baptized Sept. 5 in a corporate all church public moment. Looks like both/and not either or for us at this point. Thanks for writing and giving me pause to reference your trail.
Keep blazing fresh journeys,
Norman
4 John Wiley // Sep 13, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Ralph,
Our pool in Raytown has served us well. We do all our baptisms at the pool when the rest of the City is using the pool. We too have had walk ups. It’s great. We did not build a baptistery in our new building. I’m glad we did not.
John Wiley
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