I’ve been in church all my life.  If you calculate how many services that comes to… well, it’s A LOT!  But in all of that, I think yesterday’s church service was very likely the most powerful one I’ve ever experienced. 

We attend Harvest Bible Chapel here in the Chicago suburbs.  Our pastor, James MacDonald, spoke about Jesus being handed over to be crucified.  He spoke from Luke 23, and asked us to determine who we were out of the four main characters in this story.

Herod?  Responded to Christ with mockery. 

Pilate?  Refused to commit. 

Religious Leaders?  Were insulted that Christ would say that they weren’t good enough.  Wouldn’t admit their need. 

Barabbas?  The first in the line of many who was set free by the death of Christ.

At the end of the service, Pastor James explained the Gospel with the Bridge illustration and the Roman’s Road.  As profound as it is, it is also as simple as A, B, C.

Admit that you are a sinner.  Guilty.  Unable to ever be “good” enough.

Believe that Jesus is God and died for your sin.  There is forgiveness in Christ!

Confess your faith in Christ to others.

I’d never heard the confess part explained in this way before, but I believe it’s true.  Pastor James led the group through a basic prayer including the first two steps.  Then at the end, he said something like,

“This is the part when you would usually hear the pastor say, ‘with every head bowed, and every eye closed…’  But this morning every head is up and every eye is open.  We’re all looking around.  If you won’t confess Christ today, in here, before an auditorium full of people who love Him, then how will you ever do it out there?

Then he explained baptism as a way for us to confess Christ publicly.  In the Bible, baptism almost always immediately followed someone’s decision to receive Christ.  He said that those who had prayed to receive Christ could take their first step of obedience by being baptized — right now– to publicly profess their faith.

Now let me just remind you… to my knowledge, this was completely unknown to the audience.  People hadn’t come with the hairdryers, makeup, etc. to be dunked under the water. Also… in this new auditorium of ours, the baptistry is HIGH.  It’s about 20 feet up above the platform.  Plus you are standing up there in front of about 1,000 people.  I know I’d be trembling! 

We all stood with our eyes open and hearts racing.  Who would go under these conditions?  Pastor James continued with something like, “Every head is up and every eye is open.  No music is playing.  If you have made this decision today or recently and want to come forward to profess Christ and be baptized, then come on!”

The aisles were immediately flooded. 

People kept coming and the crowd started cheering and clapping.  Still no music.  It was unbelievable!

We stayed to watch the first 4 baptisms before slipping out to pick up our kids from childcare.  By the time we got back (about 20 minutes in at this point), one of the pastors announced to the crowd that there were at least 60 people still in line to be baptized!

Unbelievable!  Testimony after testimony of changed lives.  We saw a husband and wife get baptized.  Then their teenage son followed.  Later a woman stood up there telling us that this was her second time to visit Harvest, and that she had decided that she wanted to follow Christ and place her faith in Him alone.  She said, “Today is the day!  Today is the day!” 

Two Spanish-speaking people were baptized with a pastor translating their words which included….  “I want to follow Christ!”

After I had picked up our girls from childcare, they watched with us for a while in the back of the auditorium.  Maggie was mesmerized by it all and asked many questions about the experience.  I was so excited about God continuing to work in her little heart… drawing her to Himself.  She kept calling it “bath-tized.”

I keep thinking about all these new believers today and praying for them.  God transforms lives!  He’s still doing it.  He’s doing it in me too.

Btw, this was only one service at our church this weekend.  We have 3 services on our campus of Harvest each weekend.  In the first service on Sunday, the baptisms went on beyond the time when second service was supposed to begin.  I heard one of the church leaders say that there were around 40 baptized in that service too.  There had to be at least 70-75 in our service.  I’m still waiting to hear what happened on the other campuses. 

God is good!!