Baptism Videos & Pictures from Sunday

You can find our baptism story videos (testimonies from each person) on our church’s website.

You can see the rest of the pictures like these on our Facebook page.

 

What I Wish Everybody Could Experience During Baptisms

Yesterday was an incredible time of worship at Central!  Our 7 baptisms created a celebratory mood in the sanctuary and gave the transforming power of Jesus front stage for the entire service.  I love baptisms because they remind people of what it’s all about–seeing lives changed for the glory of God!

Everybody experienced:

• The celebration.  You just can’t resist with this type of profession of faith.  If you sit quietly through a baptismal service, then you probably don’t get excited about much!
• The videos.  Thanks to Jeff and Kelly, we all got to enjoy videos of each person being baptized telling their story of how they came to Christ.  These videos were very well done and made it so much more personal.  They should be available online soon so everyone can view them as an ongoing testimony of what Jesus can do.
• The immersion.  Everybody can see the person go under the water and come back up.  They might see the joy of the person when they come up out of the water.
• Fathers baptizing their children.  What an incredible experience it must have been for the two dads who each baptized two of their children.  I let others baptize if they were responsible for bringing the person to faith in Christ.  These dads certainly were influences on their children.

But I wish everybody could see the emotion of the person being baptized.  Some emotions are ones that only the people in the water are privileged to experience.  I’d love to be able to wear a camera on my head or something to show the tears, peace, nervousness, joy, and other emotions that I don’t quite know how to describe that I see from the people in the water.  I wish they could hear the small conversation that might occur while the person’s video is playing and we’re waiting in the water.  I wish people could see the expression on a person’s face as she is taken back into the water, and the expression close-up when she comes right out.  I wish people could see the emotion as the person walks out of the water.  All of these emotions show even more how special a baptism time is.

It is an absolute joy and privilege to be part of baptisms.  I’m ready to do it again now…

Baptisms this Sunday!

I am finishing up Sunday’s worship planning, and am so excited about what is going to happen!  Seven people are scheduled to be baptized!  We’ve got 4 men and 3 women who will be publicly professing their faith through baptism, and I’ll be preaching a message called “Sin & Salvation” from John 4:16-30.  This message should be a firm presentation of the salvation Jesus offers to our guests who will be joining us for this special service.

What is making this service even more special is that we are showing baptism videos of each person.  Videos are being edited now of each person telling their story of coming to Christ and why they want to be baptized.  The few I’ve already seen are incredible quality and content!  We’re doing these because the church family doesn’t always know the person being baptized too well.  We used to just get a person in the water, ask them if they believe in Jesus and then baptize them.  While there is great celebration in that, often nobody knows any more about the person than that simple declaration.  The videos will let the person speak to their transformation in a timely and quality way in the service.  Each video is only a minute or two long.

If we get permission from the ones in the videos, we plan to make them available online to be a witness to others.

I think I’m most excited that we have a church who preaches the gospel of Jesus Christ, which has the power to save people (Rom. 1:16), and now we’re seeing some of the fruit of that commitment to the gospel.  If you’re around Marion this Sunday at 11:00, join us for an awesome time of worship!

Celebrating God at Work!

There is a lot to be excited about around Central right now!  I just had to share it on here and I hope you get excited about it too.

• 2 people made decisions during this past Sunday’s worship to repent and return to following after the Lord!
• I met with several young girls today who want to be baptized!  They talked about their professions of faith in Jesus and their desire to obey Christ in baptism and full commitment to the church!
• I’m meeting tomorrow to begin discipling the young man who made a decision this past Sunday!  Sunday was the first time he had ever been in our building, and the Holy Spirit grabbed a hold of him!
• There is a gentleman who is very close to making a decision for the Lord!  He’s really investigating the Scriptures and learning.
• We have a unique opportunity I’m hoping works out to disciple a man who made a decision in a church outside of Marion.  That church called me to ask if we’d follow up with him.  It was great meeting him this past Sunday, and I hope the opportunity fully presents itself.
• There are about 115 women signed up for our annual Mother’s Day banquet this Saturday!  The men in the church will serve the meal while the ladies enjoy the time together in fellowship.

If this doesn’t get you excited, I’m not sure what will!

Monday Morning Rewind- Starting With Our Guard Up

Yesterday I preached my first sermon to Central Baptist Church.  Because of this, it was directed more to those already committed to the church; not as much to those who were guests.  However, I hope the message helped all who were there see that Central is going to be moving forward to continue carrying out the Lord’s work in Marion.  For members, I hope it was encouraging and refreshing.  For guests, I hope they caught a glance of what’s coming (although exact direction is not clear yet) and have a little more of a desire to fully commit and be involved.

The sermon was title “Starting With Our Guard Up” and my main Biblical text was Matthew 3:13 – 4:11.  You can listen to it by clicking here.

At the end of Matthew 3 (starting in verse 13) we see the beautiful scene of Jesus’ baptism.  One thing I pointed out here was the evidence of the Trinity in verses 16-17 where we see Jesus the Son, the Holy Spirit descending like a dove, and God the Father’s voice coming from above.

I labeled Jesus’ baptism as a spiritually high moment, just like a baptism now would be for any Christian.  These are moments when we are so fired up for Jesus that we’ll do anything for Him and we’re often striving to commit to activities that will help us keep that fire (Bible reading, consistent prayer times, etc.).

But often our spiritually high moments are followed by a trying time where Satan comes against us.  Matthew 4 starts by telling the story of the temptation of Jesus.  Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record the temptation of Jesus directly after the baptism of Jesus (Luke puts a genealogy between the two events, though, and John does not record the temptation).  We can make the application here that after spiritual high moments, Satan will do anything he can to stop the excitement of pursuing God’s will.

I told our people that we are at a spiritually high moment right now.  Things are looking great for the church, people are considering joining, three new Sunday School teachers are stepping up to start teaching, and the church has a new pastor.  These things are exciting in ministry and is encouraging for the church right now.

But Satan will do whatever he can to stop this excitement and work for the Lord.  That’s why we must start out with our guard up- because of the spiritual warfare Paul talked about in Romans 7:21- “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.”

Central wants to do right.  We want to serve the Lord and follow His will.  I admonish our church:  Don’t give Satan a foothold in this church.

Any questions or comments?  Discuss it by leaving comments.