The First Baptist Church of Hendersonville, a megachurch in Tennessee, just baptized nearly a hundred people across four church services on one day. Making the awesome event even more of a mini miracle is that all 93 of those who were baptized were not planning to do so in advance, meaning that nearly a hundred people came to the Lord spontaneously.
The Christian Post reports that the massive slew of baptisms was the largest the church, which has about 3600 attendees a week, has ever seen in a single day. Of the 93 total baptisms, a dozen occurred at the 8:30 am service, twenty-two at the 9:45 am service, five at a different 9:45 am service, and a whopping 54 at the church’s 11 am service.
Posting about the wonderful event on Facebook, the First Baptist Church of Hendersonville said, “93 Baptisms. 93 people declaring to the world that they are UNASHAMED to call Jesus their Lord and Savior. What a powerful and stunning morning of worship! How can you even begin to sum it all up? All praise and glory to the Lord. More pictures coming soon. 🙌🏻”
Speaking to The Christian Post after the wonderful event, the First Baptist Church of Hendersonville’s Senior Associate Pastor, Bruce Raley, said, that much “preparation and prayer had gone into the day.” However, he added that all those who where “baptized had not come to church prepared to be baptized.”
Rather, Raley said, “The 93 baptisms were spontaneous.” As he put it when describing the huge number of baptisms across the four services, “Those people did not come prepared to be baptized that day, but we were prepared for them to be baptized that day, and God just spoke, and they were obedient.”
Continuing, he said that the First Baptist Church of Hendersonville has seen a large number of congregants come from other parts of the United States, with them presumably being there because migration into Tennessee has picked up. He said that many of those new visitors either have “no faith background” or “a different faith background where baptism does not mean the same thing or it’s not emphasized.”
Explaining the large number of baptisms, he said that the services at which so many people came forward were the first ones where he and the pastors had delved into the importance of baptism from a biblical perspective. He said, “We heard the stories of many on Sunday that this is really the first time that we have really heard about the biblical importance and the biblical meaning of baptism.”
Further, he explained the importance of baptism to his denomination, Pastor Raley said, “Baptism is a priority for us. We want to see people come to faith in Christ and then make that profession of faith public through believer’s baptism. And so, we hold baptism up.”
He also commented on how his church tries to connect with new members, saying, “Our mission statement is ‘connecting every generation to God, others, and service.’ And to connect them with others is through a group where they’re meeting with others on a weekly basis, studying the Word of God, and then engaging them in ministry.” He added, “Where they’re walking alongside of other people, serving inside the church or in the community and then just pairing them up, putting them with other believers to walk as they learn the Christian disciplines.”
Featured image credit: First Baptist Church of Hendersonville Facebook