By TOBIN PERRY, North American Mission Board

LEXINGTON, Ga.  — The final two years have been a whirlwind for Pastor Matt Bartlett and Lexington Baptist Church in Lexington. At its current low level, the 176-year-old church had 39 individuals in attendance, with half being from the pastor’s circle of relatives and mates.

However God has been on the transfer within the 200-person small city.

Only a week earlier, on Easter Sunday, 300 individuals attended Lexington Baptist. The church has seen almost 50 baptisms up to now three years and added another on April 7, the SBC’s Baptism Sunday.

“Baptism is particular, not just for the person being baptized however for our complete church household,” mentioned Matt Bartlett, the church’s senior pastor. “Many being baptized have grown via our youngsters’s or youth ministries, influenced by quite a few members of our group, together with their dad and mom and households. It’s a church-wide celebration of God’s work of their lives. It motivates us additional. We regularly say we welcome a big water invoice as a result of it signifies steady baptisms.”

Southern Baptist church buildings throughout the US marked Baptism Sunday on April 7, celebrating new life in Christ via the ordinance of baptism. Also called “Fill the Tank Sunday,” messengers voted so as to add the special occasion to the SBC calendar on the annual assembly in 2018, upon the advice of a process pressure appointed by SBC President Steve Gaines the earlier 12 months. Gaines appointed the duty pressure to review the evangelistic effectiveness of church buildings after a long time of decline in church membership and baptisms.

In keeping with the Annual Church Profile, 2022 marked the second consecutive 12 months of progress within the variety of reported baptisms nationwide as Southern Baptists proceed recovering from the pandemic 2020 drop-off.

Steve Foster, an evangelism advisor for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, mentioned studies from the state’s church buildings confirmed 21,151 new believers have been baptized in 2023, up from 15,127 in 2022.

“It’s a results of God’s favor on our pastors and church leaders who put a significant give attention to main their church buildings to hope for misplaced individuals by identify and share Jesus via private witnessing and evangelistic occasions,” he mentioned. “Georgia Baptists ought to really feel grateful to God, but determined for a gospel motion that may sweep throughout Georgia and spiritually affect the huge lostness in our state.”

“In fact, we wish to see church buildings celebrating baptisms each Sunday , however having a selected day known as Baptism Sunday is a novel alternative for each pastor and church household to ask those that have come to know Jesus to take the subsequent step and be baptized,” mentioned Tim Dowdy, vice chairman of evangelism on the North American Mission Board. “So many church buildings have individuals who have to be baptized after coming to know Jesus Christ that having a selected day put aside to have fun baptism supplies us with one other approach to train and encourage faithfully following Jesus via baptism.”

Some church buildings, like Lexington Baptist, baptized one particular person; others baptized greater than 50.

Dean Inserra described Baptism Sunday at Metropolis Church of Tallahassee, Fla., as unbelievable. The church baptized 53 individuals after worship companies on Sunday. The group included an elementary-aged pal of Inserra’s daughter, a former Mormon, faculty college students and an individual for whom church members have been praying for seven years.

“It’s actually a portrayal of the gospel story at work,” mentioned Inserra, the senior pastor of Metropolis Church. “Our complete church really sees what we’ve been praying for go into motion. It’s a public celebration, an enormous occasion of God answering our prayers, to see the imaginative and prescient of this church, the Nice Fee, changing into a actuality.”

Inserra famous, as SBC church buildings nationwide have fun baptisms on April 7, Baptism Sunday ought to assist to push again in opposition to a story that the native church is struggling.

“Seeing this taking place throughout the nation ought to encourage us all, reminding us that God’s hand is on our church buildings,” Inserra mentioned. “We’re going to maintain transferring full velocity forward. This could encourage everybody, renew hope and instill a contemporary need to proceed witnessing God’s work.”

Wrightsboro Baptist Church in Wilmington, N.C., baptized 5 individuals, together with youngsters and a person in his 70s. The church’s senior pastor, Eddie Eaton, mentioned the aged man confirmed the thrill of a kid as he was baptized.

The church has additionally seen an up-tick in baptisms in current months, inflicting the congregation to schedule them month-to-month. Eaton commonly teaches about baptism throughout expositional preaching via particular books of the Bible. He additionally persistently brings it up in conversations with individuals as he has gospel conversations and disciples people who find themselves new to the religion.

“As a church, we have now just one factor to do: the Nice Fee, to make disciples who will then make disciples,” Eaton mentioned. “Whereas we regularly complicate this with different actions—I name it ‘busy stuff’—our true objective is to make disciples who make disciples.”

Jared Cornutt, lead pastor of North Shelby Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., calls Baptism Sunday a reminder for Southern Baptists that God continues to be transferring amongst his individuals. Cornutt celebrated his one-year anniversary at North Shelby Baptist on Baptism Sunday with six baptisms, bringing the one-year complete to 23.

Cornutt attributed these baptisms to the kindness of God and shared his gratitude for a way God is at work in his church and around the globe via Southern Baptists.

“Our process is basically fairly easy—be obedient to the Phrase, be obedient to his calling, proclaim his Phrase and belief him to do the work,” mentioned Cornutt. “[Baptism Sunday] offers me hope. It offers me hope that in a conference of 46 to 47,000 church buildings—the place it all the time looks as if there’s combating and, at occasions, issues look bleak—that whilst we wander via the proverbial desert, God is saving and redeeming individuals. That’s what we have to actually be specializing in.”

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