Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 One thing that's clear in scripture is that baptism is a big deal. And because it matters to Jesus, we think it should really matter to us as churches. In today's episode, we talk through five ideas to make your next church baptism day unforgettable. We hope this conversation helps your church reach more people and grow. This is the reach right podcast
Speaker 1 00:00:28 Help.
Speaker 0 00:00:31 You're listening to the reach, right podcast, the show dedicated to helping pastors and church leaders reach people the right way, hosted by me, Thomas Costello. And with me as always as my co-host Ian Hyatt, we're here to help your church see more visitors and grow
Speaker 2 00:00:53 To get
Speaker 0 00:00:57 Well. Hey guys, welcome to the rewrite podcast episode number 115. I am your host Thomas Costello. And with me as always is my co-host Ian Hyatt. What's up Thomas. Hey, not much, man. Good topic today. We're gonna be talking about baptism ideas. So some things we can do to help create a, a memorable day for your church and people that are being baptized, but also for people that are, uh, watching loved ones or church members be baptized. I don't know. There's something about baptism Sundays that even though I was baptized years and years ago, there's just something about seeing people come up out of that water. Yeah. And the impact that that makes and just the excitement around someone and their new life in Christ and yeah, them saying that the world that I'm following Jesus from this point forward, this powerful, it's a huge opportunity.
Speaker 0 00:01:44 And I guess we wanna talk a little bit today about how we can make the most of something that's so important to us. Yeah. Very important. Very powerful. And, uh, I don't, I, I don't think it's fair to say that this is often like a, um, just something that churches miss the mark on, but maybe because it is kind of it's of course, a big foundation, a part of our, you know, foundational part of our Christian faith. And I, I think sometimes we can maybe get into a routine with these things and kind of let, 'em get a little stale and they are quite the contrary from stale. Right. This is new life for someone making the, a decision to be baptized. So, yeah. Um, so I think it's great. Yeah. Now I don't wanna get into the weeds on this, uh, because there's lots of different, uh, theology and things around baptism you and I both come from a believers baptism kind of perspective, as opposed to a child baptism or infant baptism.
Speaker 0 00:02:35 Right. Uh, um, tradition. Uh, so that'll be the primary theme of this conversation. I'd say our audience is probably 80% or so believer, baptism. And so we, we kind of choose that direction when we're talking about this today, but I think a lot of the stuff we talk about, you could find some application, uh, if you're part of a, a tradition that does infant baptism and some of those kinds of things. So yeah. Uh, we, uh, we think that's one of those, um, non-essentials, uh, here at re Detroit, it's not something that we think is a salvation question. Sure. But, uh, yeah, that's just kind of our perspective on things, but good news. It is such an, it's such an important thing. And that's why we think it's it's was worthy of a conversation on the podcast. Yeah. Because again, it is something that gives you an opportunity to really have a party and celebrate at your church.
Speaker 0 00:03:23 And I think that, uh, we wanna make much of Jesus and I think we wanna make much of people that are giving their lives more fully to Jesus. Yeah. Uh, so really, uh, I think it's a, a huge opportunity. And so hopefully in this conversation, we can give you a handful of ideas. Yeah. Uh, maybe you could just implement one of them yeah. And make your next baptism Sunday, uh, something a little bit more special there at your church. So that's it. Um, yeah. So I guess I, I can go ahead and kick us off here. Uh, so the first thing, and I'll just kind of say, this is, it seems like it's kind of a no brainer in some ways, but, um, you need to be intentional about inviting people to be baptized. Um, I have found that that has been the, I guess the lion share of people that have chosen to be baptized in my ministry are people that were personally invited to be baptized, whether yes.
Speaker 0 00:04:12 Be to be baptized whether from the pulpit or from me personally, or invited 'em to do that. I think a lot of times churches, we get caught up in, uh, inviting people into a relationship with Jesus. Uh, and we love to count those numbers because right. In a lot of ways, those numbers, I don't wanna sound too cynical on this, but sometimes it's easy to fudge those numbers. Right. Right. To, to say like, oh, that person raised their hand. Well, sure. They've raised their hand to accept Jesus 11 weeks in a row, but that's 11 different salvation. You know, we count them all differently that way. Right. Yeah. Um, baptism is something that's a little bit harder to fudge. Well, other people came up and out of or down and out, uh, of the water. It's something that's an easy, uh, metric to kind of watch there.
Speaker 0 00:04:55 And so I think it's, it's important that we're really intentional about inviting people to take that next right step. You said yes to Jesus. Yeah. The next thing we're supposed to do is, was to get down into the water and make a decision to, to that our old life would die. Our new life would be resurrected yeah. With Christ in new life there. So really we think it's important that you're very intentional about that. So yeah. Leading up to your baptism weekend, we think that weeks in advance, maybe six weeks, even you wanna start putting that out there and kind of letting the holy spirit do what he does, uh, and encourage people to kind of feel that, that ping in their heart that says, you know what, that's a, that's a step that I need to take, whether they're rededicated their lives to the Lord, or they're deciding to be baptized for the first time thinking about that and giving them time to start to, to consider those things.
Speaker 0 00:05:46 I think that's really important. So yes. Anything add on that? Yeah. I like that you covered that, you know, not to be cynical, but you know, sometimes we do focus on first time visitors and hands raised. Obviously those things are important, but I, I would argue this is probably a bigger metric to, to track cuz it really does show the health of a church. Yeah. And when someone takes that next step in baptism, that is, that's more commitment that is actually, you know, I would say double duty instead of just raising it now, now accepting Christ as your saviors, huge, biggest decision anyone can make. But this baptism, I think shows the health of a church's discipleship. Are they getting people moving people further than just a decision, but they're a following now. Yeah. Um, and it made me think of, uh, and, and we won't say the person's name, you know, them, but I, I had the privilege of leading a friend to the Lord in a small group setting and, and that was a big deal.
Speaker 0 00:06:40 Um, and, and, you know, through the center's prayer, just a prayer, uh, accepting Jesus now. And then the next time we followed back up with this said friend, it was like, okay, well, Hey man, that was awesome. Next step to go deeper and really make this as baptism. And it was whoa, whoa, man. That's a lot let's hold on, pump the brakes a little bit. So I think that's another thing to remind. That's why we gotta be intentional. Like you've covered in this first point is because it's a bigger decision for most people to really, uh, and I think one of the biggest metrics for a church to track. So yeah. I mean, I think it, we understand theologically that it may not be a bigger decision than making an initial decision to follow Jesus. Right, right. Cause it's not, again, I think there'll be people, my theology, at least there'll be people in heaven that didn't make it to baptism maybe.
Speaker 0 00:07:27 Sure. You know, they, they never took that step or it wasn't, I, for whatever reason I could be wrong about that, I think it is the right step that a believer would take. But I, I think my theology is that baptism doesn't save us, uh right. But deciding to follow Jesus in your heart and, and making that decision, uh, and deciding that what he did for us on the cross was sufficient and all, all those parts of it, the actual acceptance is where salvation happens for people. But yeah. Um, I will say that, uh, it it's so important to be intentional because this is something that you were talking about, metrics, churches as a whole, like I'm part of a denomination where every year, uh, they release the numbers. We have this many salvations and this many baptisms and the number of salvations is almost always about 10 times the number of baptisms that took place.
Speaker 0 00:08:14 Yeah. And so a lot of questions arise because of that. Right. Because it's just one of those things that, uh, there is a reason for that discrepancy. And I think your church, ideally it would be a one to one ratio. There'd be a, a very solid decision to baptism pipeline that you would have in order. Yeah. And so having that and being intentional about it, I think is really important. That's good. Well, I'll cover the next one. It's a good segue. Uh, after being intentional. Well then you gotta be intentional about having a big to value it more. I would say have a churchwide baptism weekend. I think that, you know, when you rally the church around this and you make it a specific event, uh, it could be, be a lot more impactful mm-hmm <affirmative> and I think it can also lend more people deciding to, uh, to do this because then they get to invite, they get it's an event, you know, you can, uh, you know, have all sorts of things around this.
Speaker 0 00:09:09 My church does this, we've done this for years. It's one of my favorite, if not, probably my, actually now that I say this, it's probably my favorite service that we do. And I think we do it every fifth, Sunday of the month as I, you know, kind of have it a not, not every two weeks or anything like that. And I think one step further than monthly, but it will happen on a, I think every fourth or fifth, Sunday of the month, I'm, I'm having a brain fart now, but here's the cool thing about it with this churchwide baptism weekend, it's promoted. We promote it online, social media. We, like you said, even, uh, weeks out, make sure that people know, and we have this standing day that we do this so that everyone knows, oh yeah, this fifth, Sunday, uh, this of, of the month or fourth, Sunday of the month, whatever it is, we're gonna have this for us.
Speaker 0 00:09:55 We like to, to include this as a part during the worship time. Um, so our pastor actually gets to name usually it's a good again, I'm a part, as we've mentioned before in previous podcasts of a larger church, um, you don't have to be a larger church to do, uh, promoted and have a churchwide weekend. But that being said, every time we do this, we have at least probably about 15 people. Well, here's the cool thing is during worship, before worship, our pastor gets to highlight the people, even tell some stories behind why Johnny over here got, you know, connected with someone in our youth and he's making that decision. And then as we're worshiping together, you know, we get to see on the screens and in person, these decisions being made and it's, it's just super powerful because, you know, we've made it an event and we, we are just, you know, excited family members are excited that have come out.
Speaker 0 00:10:51 And so it's, it's been, that's a great thing for us to do. Yeah. What a great worshipful experience right. Watching people make that decision. It's, it's such an extension of worship. We, we get so caught up in thinking of musical worship is kind of the way we do, uh, worship in church. But I mean, my goodness, what is more worshipful than celebrating with someone as they make a decision to follow Christ with their whole life and follow him into baptism, it's just praising God while they're making that decision. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so let me ask you this. So you guys have multiple services, right? How many services do you guys have at your church on a weekend? So we have, uh, three services on, on a weekend. Yeah. Saturday and then two Sunday. Is that right? So we actually have two now, Sunday morning and one Sunday evening, Sunday evening.
Speaker 0 00:11:34 Okay. So yeah. Do you have baptisms at all? Three of those or just one of the, one of the services we have them at both morning services, but not in the evening. Yeah. Not the, I believe is the way we're doing it still. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, you know, yours is a unique context, a church context, smaller churches. I think if you're having two services, my encouragement would be to do something where, um, everybody gets to celebrate together, especially at smaller churches where sure. You know, your church, you probably don't know most of the people that are being baptized because right. Too many people to know where different, different, different beast, if we can say it that way. Right. So a church of 200 people, you've probably seen these people around that are getting baptized. And so you wanna be there to celebrate that. So if you're a multiple service church of 200 people, it's great to kind of put that in between or have a chance for everybody to, to see that together.
Speaker 0 00:12:24 And to that's a good point. Celebrate there again. You don't have, that's why I mentioned you don't have to be a large church to make this an event, you know, and it could even be this Sunday. You're preaching a message on baptism too. So there's different things you can do within that event. Um, for sure. So, yeah. Cool. Well, next one is we encourage churches to move baptism, outdoors. Um, so doing it outside of the building now, so here to me, I, I live in Hawaii. Um, our audience knows that I've never been to an indoor baptism in Hawaii in my life. So that's just what you do. Yeah. Is you baptize people in the ocean. That's where it takes place. It's just some, it's a, a cultural part of how we do things here. So yeah, never, uh, thinking hard. I've never once seen someone baptized in a church building.
Speaker 0 00:13:10 It was foreign to me when I moved to the mainland and realized, well, you guys do it in like a, you make a tub for baptizing people in your church. That's so weird. Yeah. Why would anybody do that? Jesus didn't do it that way. He didn't have a tub. Yeah. They were, he was in the Jordan river. So it's uh, yeah. So, uh, it's second nature to me, but I, I think that there's a lot to be said for moving, moving your baptisms outside of the church walls. Yeah. Um, I love doing it publicly because it's even more of a statement like right. There's people that, um, can be walking by or people that don't know you. Yeah. When I was a kid, I remember we, our church, we were doing, uh, baptism Sunday. It was out at the beach. Uh, and uh, I go to school the next day and this, this kid that he didn't see me, I guess, but a, a acquaintance of mine at school says it was so weird.
Speaker 0 00:13:57 I was out at the beach and there was this cult, baptizing their members out at the beach. And it was us. We were, we were the cult, I guess, in this case here. So that's funny. Anyway, it's, uh, I, I think that it's kind of an awesome witness to the, the world out there to be seeing, this is something, this church takes these things seriously. Right. I think there's a lot of advantage to, I don't wanna put too much weight into this, but to the, the social side of things. Yeah. Like, um, photo it's harder to get good photos of baptisms and good videos of baptism, uh, when your baptistry is back behind the, the pulpit there and right. You know, kind of where it was traditionally in churches, that's true churches on the mainland there, so. Right, right. Um, so I think that there's a lot of advantage to doing outdoor photography, outdoor video, uh, seeing those things happen out there.
Speaker 0 00:14:43 People might be more comfortable showing up too. You know, they got room to breathe they're out there. And, uh, I would also say you reminded me too, too. We've seen some of the benefits of taking it outside as far as cleaning or less of a mess and hassle. Um, if you remember, I baptized my mother, I came to faith before my mother, uh, at a church. You and I both pastored at, we were able to baptize her. And problem was our baptism tub that we had on this occasion, ended up springing a leak inside. Um, so we had to rush and scramble and get the tub. And this church was upstairs. It's the most awkward, messy thing, but we had to get the baptism tub, which I don't know how many gallons of water it was full of, but we had to get it out on the balcony.
Speaker 0 00:15:26 And then we had to, you know, as it was, the leak kept getting worse. So water was coming off the top balcony down on the ground. And the, if had it been outside, would've been less of a mess there, but that doesn't, I remember that that's obviously I've forgotten about that, but I do remember it now. I remember that shooting off the balcony down onto the parking lot there and, and, you know, that's, it's a rare occurrence that something like that happens usually. But if you think about it though, if it's all outside, it is easier to manage with towels and all of that. Of course, if it's we, if the weather's, uh, appropriate for the, you know, for that condition it's yeah. So good. We won't you the next one for us. Yeah. Another one is ma we, I talked a little bit about this when during the year event, and this does not have to happen during event, but that's basically having storytelling behind baptism baptism.
Speaker 0 00:16:12 Again, a very powerful decision. Someone's making get photos at a minimum of these baptisms taking place. Uh, we've seen with, we do web development here, as we, as we've shared numerous times and, uh, help with social media and all of that, the most powerful photography, some of the most powerful photography is a baptism happening in action. You know, someone coming up outta the water, the water being, uh, and that is showing, you know, candid, you know, action of, you know, life change in your church. So it's someone making that decision. So photos, videos, um, even P perhaps, um, not that you have to do this for every person, maybe it depends on the amount of people getting baptized in a Sunday, or if someone's comfortable, they should share a brief video testimony. Why are they making this decision? This could be played, you know, shortly before they get baptized.
Speaker 0 00:17:06 You know, here's where I was before. Here's why I'm making this decision. Here's where God's taking me. Um, not hard to pull off these days, um, getting good photography, videos, those types of things. I think this is one of the most untapped opportunities that churches have is when someone is deciding to be baptized. Um, they're already stay there, willing to follow Jesus into something that, you know, they wouldn't otherwise normally do. Let's just be honest, like deciding to have other people dunk, be in the water. Yeah. And come back out again is not like a socially, uh, um, cool thing to do in a lot of ways. I mean, maybe it is in churches. Sure. But there's, there's no other circumstance where that's a normal thing to do. So they're already taking a big leap. Yep. I think in these times they're gonna be very willing more in any other time in their lives, in a lot of cases to share the story of why, why do you want do this?
Speaker 0 00:18:00 Why do you want to take this next step? And when you can capture those, whether it's written, whether it's a video or yeah. Something like that in photography, those kinds of things, that is a way to help them take the step of sharing their faith. Yeah. So if someone does a video testimony of why they're deciding to be baptism, and it doesn't have to be long it's 60 or 90 seconds, or yeah. Something you put a little production value into it, what a tool that is to your whole community, but to their family, to the people that they love, that don't yet know Jesus for them to, they're gonna be happy to watch something of that. It'll be on social media, they'll see the church promoting it and what a powerful moment that they would see someone that they love and care for and respect, deciding to, to say why the, the reason for the hope that they have, like why they're deciding to follow Jesus.
Speaker 0 00:18:48 So, uh, it's, it's such a huge opportunity there. So, uh, and it can encourage people that are on the fence with, uh, getting baptized when they see those stories. For sure. So yeah. Another benefit, huge. So yeah. Do make sure that you're not squandering that huge opportunity to, to tell these stories and capture these stories because they are fleeting. They, they're not gonna be, they may not be the same forever. Ideally the person's gonna get better and better and share their faith more and more. But I will just say that there's people are rarely more impactful than that time when they're choosing to be baptized. So indeed yeah. Huge opportunity I think for churches there. So, uh, last one is use it as an opportunity to make deeper personal connections. So I, I think one of the frustrations that a lot of people have with baptism, and this is something that I've heard.
Speaker 0 00:19:35 Um, I don't know if that frustration's the right word or not, but I've heard this from people after they come up out of the water. If they're being really honest, they expected something different when they came up and out of the water, like, right. I don't know. Someone felt like I would come up and I felt totally renewed and everything was different. Angels were right. Above were real. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause we read about that account in scripture and you, of course, the stories we hear about baptism is like Jesus and the dove descending. Right. We hear about the Ethiopian Munich and what happens, like the guy that baptisms baptizes him like disappears and winds up in another place in the world. Yeah. Like hundreds of miles away. So you hear about these amazing things. And in my experience, I've never seen teleportation or Dove's post baptism.
Speaker 0 00:20:19 So like that's never, I haven't either <laugh> so that'd be a, a new experience for me. So people have these expectations of these kinds of things happening, and I'm not saying they're impossible, they certainly could happen. But in reality, I think that a lot of times it's much more normal, uh, and uh, still an amazing experience, but it's not maybe the, the deep spiritual high that maybe people were expecting. And that's totally okay. Right. But I think it, it begs for an opportunity for us to continue that conversation and that relationship. So our encouragement is to, to everybody, every church leader have a plan to follow up with people probably even over a few times after they've been baptized. Yeah. So what does that plan look like? You know, that baptism now, what, it's a great time to invite them into yeah. More opportunities of ministry and to grow closer to the Lord and discipleship courses and all those things.
Speaker 0 00:21:13 It's really a big opportunity for those kinds of things there. So I would say, just remember that baptism is a moment, right? It's one decision it's, it's one second under the water. Right. But I think the opportunity and the impact that it has and really the, the growth potential for someone, it really it's, it's just a starting point, right? Yeah. It's, it's a think of it as a kicking off of their journey and their relationship of growing closer to the Lord that way. So, um, really take those opportunities. So I think what that looks like practically is having a plan of how you follow up with people after they've been baptized. And I think this might be something in most cases, depending on your church, I know for a church, your church's size, it might be hard to not automate something like this, if sure.
Speaker 0 00:21:57 You're talking about, I mean, how many people get baptized every fifth week? Oh gosh, 20 30, 40, probably close to 60 or so. Yeah. 60. Yeah. So yeah, so's, it's, we're an anomaly. Yes. So, right. It's a huge endeavor to try and, uh, build organic follow up processes there. But I think like a real phone call or a real coffee appointment or some like that is a great next step for someone, with someone who's a leader at their church and helping them kind of take those next steps in following Jesus and helping them sort that stuff out. I think that's the right approach. So plan for follow up. Remember baptism is just a moment. Yep. But the, the journey is the rest of their lives. That's so plan accordingly. That's, that's not a one and done. And as we said earlier, baptism is a sign of someone entering into a deeper discipleship, you know, and, and, and that is every church is focus and assimilation.
Speaker 0 00:22:49 We've talked a lot about assimilation and other podcasts. This is a big step to where you have the opportunity to help guide them down a path where they go deeper in their relationship with the Lord. So that's definitely spot on good stuff. Good stuff. Anything to add as we close up, Ian. No, I, I think what we said at the beginning is a good reminder. You don't have to do all of this again. Every church is different. You know, I get the big event, uh, example for my church, doesn't have to be a huge event, but making an event, you know, and implement a couple of things that are right for your church's culture and community in size. Uh, and again, even if it was just one of these things that, uh, a church can implement, we have a cheesy saying, but we still have believed it and said it for years, we wanna leave churches better than we found them.
Speaker 0 00:23:31 And if we hope that this podcast has done that a bit, so that's it. Yeah. My, my only part I think is I, I think if I were to sum it up in one sentence, it's make much of baptism. God makes a big deal about it. We should too. And so let's celebrate that and, uh, keep doing what you're doing. Thank you. Uh, absolutely. For all you do pastors and our reach, right family here. We wanna thank you guys for being a part of our reach, right family. Uh, it means a lot to us if this episode or any episode has made a difference for you or helped you, it would mean a ton to us. If you would rate, review, subscribe, do all those kinds of things to help us get the word out there about this podcast. We wanna thank you again for parting up being a part of our reach, right family. Yep. And we hope to catch you next week.
Speaker 3 00:24:13 Thanks for listening to the reach right podcast. We hope this episode will help you reach people the right way, looking for more resources for your church. Check us out online at reach, right studios.com. If this episode has been helpful to you, it would mean the world to us. If you would rate, review and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for listening. And we'll see you next week
Speaker 2 00:24:41 To get.
