The large number of baptisms performed over the weekend by a local church indicates that the Lord is bringing a spiritual revival to the Southern California area.
Calvary Chapel Chino Hills celebrated one of their most joyous moments as a church through a set of Facebook posts featuring the baptisms of new Christians who publicly proclaimed their commitment to Christ.
A blog on the church's website said that the mass baptism took place in Corona del Mar as part of the church's commitment to be spiritually active in their neighborhood. Over 1,200 people showed up to be baptized at the ceremony on June 26th, which was also witnessed by thousands of people.
On Saturday morning, CCCH hosted a baptism class. At 9 a.m., the ceremony started off with a word from Pastor Jack Hibbs. Pastor Hicks began by explaining the significance of baptism for Christians, followed by a short presentation of the gospel, which was preceded by a prayer.
"This is not your ticket to heaven, because you've already accepted Christ as Lord and Savior," Pastor Hicks explained. "The next step of obedience to His Word is the association with Jesus, baptism."
In his prayer, he said: "These who have made decisions to acknowledge you as Lord and Savior have now decided in obedience to your Bible to come to the waters of baptism. And in doing so, an outward display, an outward announcement that they've made a decision to follow Jesus and that they have been as Jesus said, 'Born again.'"
After the message, he then led the pastoral team in baptizing those who had gathered along the shoreline. Others who don't belong to the church were invited to participate in the baptisms after speaking briefly with a pastoral staff member.
CCCH also baptized about 300 people in the same location last year.
Aside from the in-breaking revival that is taking place in California, churches in other states are also seeing breakthroughs in their ministries. Long Hollow Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee, has had more than 1,000 baptisms since December. Long Hollow's community groups immediately welcomed the new Christians to their discipleship meetings or were encouraged to pursue discipleship in their home states.
In June of last year, the North American Mission Board produced a video titled "Baptisms: It's on Me," in which pastors and leaders from many faith backgrounds discussed and encouraged one another about the Southern Baptist Convention's declining baptism count.
When pastors and leaders hear the statement "It's on me," it serves as an encouragement to them to assume personal responsibility in restoring baptisms in the United States of America.
"It's on us all," said Thomas Hammond, executive director of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board. "So, what we need to do is to really focus on the Great Commission. It's to remember what Christ reminded us and that's to keep our eyes on the harvest field because it's abundant and it's ready for harvest. It's important for us like never before to equip the saints for the work of the ministry and to go out into the fields ourselves."
