When I heard the words “spontaneous baptism” on December 15, 2020, I was caught off guard. For the previous 10 months, my nightly routine had been to sit silently for one to two hours on my porch alone in the presence of God. Before that moment, I hadn’t heard anything from God during my time on the porch. What caught me off guard was the timing.
The following Sunday was to be the final Sunday we would meet in person for a month due to doctors in our church begging us to take off for a few weeks to help curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Consequently, few showed up for worship that Sunday. In fact, December 20, 2020, was (at the time) the lowest-attended Sunday in my five years at Long Hollow Church. But out of obedience, I offered the opportunity to be baptized.
In the first service, 25 people came forward for baptism. Seventy-four responded in the second service. When I walked out to the porch that night to spend time with God, He was waiting for me. I was overwhelmed with emotion, recounting what I witnessed that morning. “God, I will tell my grandkids about the day we saw 99 people step forward for baptism.”
I thought it was a one-and-done move of the Spirit, but as I sat with my eyes closed, the Holy Spirit gave me a picture of heavy raindrops falling before the torrential downpour that was coming. I had no idea we would see almost 1,600 baptized over the next eight months.
Experiencing revival
For clarification, our church didn’t have the mindset of getting people in the tank to report numbers to a convention. Throughout 2020, we witnessed around 125 baptisms. The year prior we saw just over 250. I’m not downplaying the number of people who followed through in obedience. What I’m trying to communicate is that we weren’t a church bent on rushing people into the baptistry after conversion. Prior to that Sunday, every new believer went through a multi-week baptism class before entering the water.
In the coming months, I asked every person who entered the baptism tank two questions: Where are you from? Why did you come to be baptized? “I flew in last night from … Oregon, New York, Maine, or California” were common responses. The states were different, but the circumstances surrounding their arrival were the same. When asked why they traveled so far to be baptized when there are a lot of churches between there and here, most said, “The Holy Spirit compelled me to come. I had to do this.”
What we experienced was a heaven-sent revival. No one said they came because of the preaching, worship, or programming. They said, “I’m here because God directed me.”
A prayer problem
My point in sharing about that season of revival is for you to believe God for revival in your church. Every great movement of God begins by not moving. If you study revival history, you’ll discover men and women who sat with the Lord in prayer until He moved. In essence, they said, “God, I’m not going to move until you move.”
The baptism problem we have is not a preaching problem. We have access to more sermons now than ever before. It’s not a worship problem. We have more Christian music on the radio and in churches than ever before. Our problem is a prayer problem. Not prayers unanswered by God but prayers unoffered by believers.
It’s easy to read an account like this with skepticism. I know, because I would’ve responded the same way before this experience. You’re tempted to say, “That happened at Long Hollow, but it will never happen here.” Doubt is a great debilitator. You don’t overcome doubt with positive thinking. Doubt is defeated by faith in the promises of God. James warned about this in James 1:6-8, “But let him ask in faith without doubting. For the doubter is like the surging sea, driven and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, being double-minded and unstable in all his ways” (CSB).
Our faith and God’s power
In a sense, you possess what you confess. Do you believe people will be baptized this Sunday at your church? Do you believe God will save someone this weekend? And do you believe God can send revival?
The Bible speaks of an inextricable connection between our faith and God’s power. Jesus was hindered from performing miracles in His hometown because of the people’s unbelief. A river never rises higher than its source. As a church leader, you may be the lid and limit to the power of God working among your people.
Don’t hear what I’m not saying. I don’t subscribe to a name it and claim it, blab it and grab it, or believe it and achieve it ministry. However, God’s power is tethered to our belief. What do you believe God can do in your church? Do you believe God can spark a disciple-making movement among your people?
Have you studied the biographies of great men and women of the faith and asked God to use you as He did them? Have you read of William Carey’s ministry to China and believed God could use you like that? Or have you heard about George Mueller’s prayer ministry and asked the Lord for the same faith he had? Do you hear of revival accounts on college campuses like Asbury University and long for the same in your context? Or do you dismiss it as something unattainable? Do you criticize it because you haven’t encountered it? I’d rather be criticized for believing God for too much than not believing Him for enough.
Prepared for discipleship
It’s important to remember baptism isn’t the finish line of our faith but the starting line. The discipleship journey continues after baptism. Our job as ministry leaders is to walk alongside every believer so they grow into the image of Christ.
I was on a podcast toward the end of the revival. The host asked a question that stuck with me. “Robby, I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but I think it’s interesting that God sent revival to the discipleship guy. Why do you think that is?” I paused for a few moments to ponder the question. In full transparency, I wasn’t praying specifically for God to send a baptism revival to Long Hollow. However, I was praying for God to spark a disciple-making movement among our people.
I responded, “I don’t want to pretend to understand the mind of God, but maybe He sent revival to Long Hollow because, for the five years leading up to it, I worked to implement a disciple-making process to invest in everyone who crossed the threshold of faith. I can’t say with certainty that we discipled every person who exited the tank, but we tried.”
If God sends a revival akin to what we see in the book of Acts to your church this Sunday, and 3,000 people get saved and baptized, do you have the infrastructure to disciple that many people? Most would say, “No way.” Well, do you have a strategy for discipling any? A crucial part of disciple making is baptism, which is why Jesus tethered baptism to the Great Commission in Matthew 28: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing…” (Matthew 28:19a, CSB).
Movement-ready church
We can’t create revival, but we can quench it. Start praying now for God to send revival to your church. Expect Him to show up when you preach. Offer the opportunity to come forward for baptism, then anticipate people responding. During the white-hot season of revival, I got up every Sunday to preach, envisioning the floor of the worship center filled with spiritual gasoline, waiting any minute for God to drop the match to set people’s hearts on fire for Him.
So, do you believe God can work mightily in your church? Do you believe He can send a revival of baptism this Sunday? You might be right either way. A disciple-making church should be a movement-ready church that is baptizing, empowering, and multiplying believers to follow Christ in all things.
This article originally appeared at Lifeway Research.
Related posts:
Evangelism, Tithing Crucial, EC Leader Boto Tells SBC Annual ‘Revive This Nation’ Effort Yields Countrywide Harvest Southern Baptist Churches in the News 
Early Adopters Pave the Way for GO2 Initiative 
Baptism Sunday testimonies celebrate life transformation 
FROM THE SEMINARIES: Iorg, at convocation, underscores evangelism as priority Evangelists Offer Hope, Help for Churches 2019 SBC Annual Meeting Theme
