Pastor Joby Bartin, the founder and lead pastor of the Church of Eleven22, recently conducted a massive baptism event on a Florida beach and, after doing so this year, spoke to Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) News about the incredible event and how it went. In this year’s, an incredible 1614 people, far more than the usual 1,100, were baptized.
Speaking to CBN News about the beach baptism, with which he was helped by about 5 dozen volunteers who helped conduct the baptisms, Pastor Martin said, “God saved a lot of people, and those people were obedient to take the next step — to go public with their faith and declare Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.”
Continuing, he went on to explain that a massive number of attendees showed up to both participate in and watch the event, saying, “And just as amazing as the 1,614 people that got baptized are the … maybe 10,000 people from our church [who] showed up to celebrate it on the beach.”
Pastor Martin then explained that the massive baptism event was “like a big family reunion” and celebration for his constantly growing church. He even added, when speaking to CBN News, that it has been “a bit overwhelming” to have participated in so much spiritual transformation.
He then explained that this has exceeded his wildest expectations from when he went into the ministry, saying ,“I had no idea when I got into ministry that I would get to be a part of anything like this. And, obviously, [I] can’t take any credit whatsoever. We planted our church in 2012. Lots of people have come to Christ. The church has grown pretty exponentially.”
Further, Pastor Martin explained that God is doing great things to help the church, saying, “It just seems like God is doing a thing amongst his church.” He continued, “It was super neat for us to be able to celebrate what He’s doing here with what He’s doing all over the place.” He then said, “[We are] just overwhelmed with the goodness of God — that God decided to flex and God loves saving people. And it was a pretty surreal moment.”
Additionally, speaking about a particularly powerful baptism he performed, Pastor Martin said that there was a man he baptized as his daughter watched and, “She’s looking at her dad about to go under, and she’s just bawling. And all I can think is, ‘This little girl has been praying for her dad … and she’s probably doesn’t have the words, but she knows what Paul says in Romans — that this guy, when he comes out of the water, he’s going to be walking in a newness of life.’” He added, “And I dumped that dude, and they embraced, and we all cried, and I know that that household has been revived.”
Then, encouraging Christians to pray for church leaders and churches, he said, “I would always covet the prayers of people for me, and my family, and our elders, and our pastors, and our staff, because the enemy is not pleased. We have an enemy who’s a thief. He wants to steal, kill, and destroy, and he is going to try to attack these people that have just come to Christ.”
Watch the poweful baptism event here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video