Last night was baptism at the Coop. I'm gonna do my best to give you a general idea of what it felt like to be there, but in all honestly, you should probably just drive to columbia next time there is one. awesome doesn't even begin to describe it.
For starts, pastor Dustin Willis made a point to describe to everyone present that this was THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING that the church does. He told us after the baptisms that a lot of churches spend a lot of time organizing a mission statement, a vision, and core values to guide them, but he says when people ask him what his vision is for his church, he gives them the date of the next baptism. twenty-five people were baptized last night, and Dustin only baptized 5 of them. the awesome thing was that the other twenty were baptized by either their Christian friends, their brother/sister, their camp counselor, or their parents (this is ridiculously scandalous to many I know, but definitely not unbiblical). to me this gave a whole new meaning to baptism, considering I was baptized by someone I didn't really know all that well.
And the celebration that followed was unreal. And when I say celebration, I'm not necessarily talking about everyone cheering as loud as they could, or even a social gathering that followed. All that was great, but I'm talking about the celebration that you could see in each person's eyes that came out of the water. There was no denying that Christ had done something amazing and each one of their lives.
I got to see Antionette, a high school friend of mine baptized and she was literally glowing for the rest of the night (see picture). After the baptism, the band led us in some of the most celebratory worship I've ever heard, ending with us singing at least 15 times:
O praise the one who paid my debt
and raised this life up from the dead
and honestly, I can't imagine a more excited look on someone's face who had literally been raised from the dead. there are no words to describe what took place Sunday night at the Coop or the God who made it happen, but here's a few that come as close as I can get:
Our God is an awesome God
He reigns from heaven above
with wisdom, power and love
Our God is an awesome God
2 comments:
kent,
i am not sure if we have ever been formally introduced. but - your blog is very good. midtown is an amazing church. next time you play at freedom i will be sure to formall introduce myself. keep up the good work here.
haha, it's always good to know SOMEONE is reading it. I think that brings it to a grand total of-well, one.
Sounds good man, I'll be back on the 11th. See ya then. In the meantime, I'm gonna check out your blog.
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