A Tennessee megachurch baptized 93 people across four worship services in a single day, with those professing their faith reportedly not planning to do so in advance.
First Baptist Church of Hendersonville, which has an average weekly worship attendance of around 3,600 people, baptized 93 people on Sunday, the largest single-day number of baptisms the congregation has seen.
Twelve people were baptized at the church’s 8:30 a.m. service, 22 at the 9:45 a.m. service, five at a 9:45 a.m. service held at a different venue on campus, and 54 at the 11 a.m. service.
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FBC Hendersonville Senior Associate Pastor Bruce Raley told The Christian Post that while a lot of “preparation and prayer had gone into the day,” the people who were “baptized had not come to church prepared to be baptized.”
“The 93 baptisms were spontaneous,” Raley said. “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.”
Raley said his church sees many people move from other parts of the United States, with many having either “no faith background” or “a different faith background where baptism does not mean the same thing or it’s not emphasized.”
“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,” he said.
After the baptisms, Raley said the next step involves getting those 93 people connected to a small group Bible study to help build their religious beliefs.
“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,” Raley told CP.
“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.”
One way the church celebrates the baptisms is to have the newly baptized people sign their names to testify to what they have done on a prominently displayed wall in the building.
“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 added.