So tonight is just one of those nights that serves as A GOOD REMINDER to why we do what we do. The plan was to do our Baptism Gathering outside by the river at this amazing outdoor theatre, but God wanted to unload as much water on downtown Columbia as possible throughout the afternoon.
Our team decided the best thing to do would be to set up baptism at the intended location as well as in the back up location (parking garage at the State Museum…only place big enough where water is NOT a problem). Well we finally had to make the call to move it to the parking garage and IT WAS AMAZING.
Some thoughts and facts from the night:
- 43 people being baptized. (read Romans 6:1-4)
- Glass bottle cokes, root beers, orange crush, & moon pies
- Mighty to Save, Everlasting God, & God of this City
- Did I mention 43 people standing and proclaiming Jesus as their Lord.
- Former pot heads and addicts who are clean now and are in love with Jesus
- Homeless folks being baptized by middle class college students
- An entire fraternity standing around the baptistry as 2 guys leave a life of partying to live a life for the mission of Jesus.
- 43 stories that are a part of the story of God
- Almost 600 people standing/sitting and cheering as if their favorite football team just beat their arch rival for the first time in 9 years. This happened every time someone came up out of the water. (it was sooooo loud and crazy…good stuff…the way it should be)
- USC athletes baptizing their teammates
- Tonight we baptized the same number of people that we baptized all last year.
- Numerous Life Groups standing around the mini-pool while someone in their Life Group claims Christ loud and clear in front of hundreds of people.
- The gospel message was communicated 43 different times tonight from 43 different people. All the stories ended the same way…Jesus saved me. I promise that specific ending to each story doesn’t get old and never will.
- Tonight was A GOOD REMINDER of why we moved here to this incredible city.
- It was awesome, but greater things have yet to come and greater things are still to be done in this city.
For those of you who pour your hours, your talent, your money, your heart, your emotions….etc. THANK YOU…TONIGHT IS WHY…..THANKS!
Baptism Video Coming NEXT WEEK. Also, there is another video of myself and our staff doing the Thriller dance that I will post sometime this week as well.(hilarious) I have all the post mapped out for this week so it should be a pretty good week of post.
3 responses so far ↓
blake // April 28, 2008 at 6:54 pm |
awesome. i love it.
jonathan // April 28, 2008 at 9:11 pm |
It’s a great encouragement to see God’s people doing the work for the Kingdom. It’s awesome to see others being baptized into a new life with such joy and zeal that they proclaim Him out loud. I hope that this spirit of true faith and worship will spill over to the old traditional congregations where too often people walk the other way at an alter call or we don’t even go forward to greet our new brother or sister in Christ. We wait until the directory comes out to learn who they are. It’s good to see true passion. It’s fuel to a flickering flame. Keep up the good work.
Wearing a Deer Suit in Open Season « dustin willis // May 1, 2008 at 9:38 am |
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