The Holy Spirit Came to Church

This morning was something to see. For those that couldn't make it or weren’t in the sanctuary let me describe it. We joined in a time of outstanding worship led by our worship team. We had originally planned to baptize one person that had made a request to be baptized as soon as possible. After the Friday Night City Wide Healing Service we had a total of 6 who desired baptism. So we entered Sunday morning thinking that 6 would follow Christ in baptism. 

As we prepared to baptize I began to teach about the statement that baptism makes to the world. I talked about dying with Christ, being buried with Christ, and being raised to new life with Christ. This naturally led to sharing the Gospel and asking people to respond to Jesus' invitation to follow Him - and many did. Then the Spirit of God put in my heart to ask the people who had just responded by an upraised hand to be baptized immediately. Honestly I thought a few might answer this call. To my delight hands started going up all over the sanctuary. Many of them were children wanting to take this step without having planned to - without dry cloths and in front of all those people - pretty amazing. The adults who wanted to be baptized stood there crying. I went to them and asked what God was doing in them. They found it hard to describe - they just said they knew Jesus was telling them to be baptized.

We didn't have enough towels - they had no dry clothes to change into afterwards. For a while it seemed like a mad house as these folks met with our outreach pastor to make sure they understood what they were doing. Just so happens that two ladies from the church had clothes in their cars that they intended for Goodwill, but hadn't got there yet. It was prefect - everybody had dry clothes and towels. 18 baptisms later we were celebrating all that God had done. After the service we had a Thanksgiving meal together. As I looked around the room and talked with people I saw a new fire in the eyes of God's people. They are alive with expectation about what God is going to do next, and so am I.