Today was a wonderful day in the history of our church. This is the second time that I know of that Elevation has done this - last time being during a series called "Deep" last year. Basically - Pastor Furtick understands the weight and gravity behind the symbol that is public baptism. This led him to set up these services where he Redefines what baptism is and then attempts to Remove any (and I mean any) roadblocks to doing it right away.

In order to redefine baptism, Pastor took us to John the Baptist and then made connections in Acts about baptism references always occurring after someone professed Christ and not before. He explained that it "does" nothing - but made a great analogy that I'm hoping is his. He said that baptism is essentially the wedding ring of salvation. It is not the event in and of itself - but is a symbol of a very real life commitment. He went on to explain that there is a decline in men wearing their wedding rings due to them being uncomfortable (I bought mine with a comfort fit :) ). This idea really didn't sit too well with him - he kept referencing how little the "embarrassment" really cost us in light of Christ sacrifice.

I didn't realize this until way after - but Pastor Furtick really understands our congregation. We are made up of many denominations - several of which practice infant baptism and not believers baptism. His encouragement to our congregation today was to be baptized if you have never done so. This went for the new believer as well as believer for 40 plus years.

In order to remove roadblocks - the Elevation staff went out of their way to prepare for any excuses. On-hand today they had T-shirts, shorts, boxers, sports-bras, blow dryers, make-up, soap, shampoo, and feminine hygiene products. In order to deal with wanting family to be there - Pastor made constant reference to the biblical description of doing it on the spot. If that wasn't enough - they hired a professional photographer to take pictures of everyone and they will be sending those pictures free of charge to the people who got baptized. This was amazing.

They played one song and told people if they wanted to get baptized to head to the back. Outside they had a huge tank set-up with dozens of Elevation volunteers surrounding it. When people got baptized - it was (by design) a party. They dismissed the service for the rest of us and Em and I got the girls and got to witness no less than 50 baptisms. We were able to rejoice with these people in their decision.

I was waiting until one of the big-guns over at our church posted something on their blogs about today's baptisms and Larry Hubatka won the prize...I don't want to steal his thunder - so if you are curious how many baptisms we had at the 5 services today - click here - Praise God for what he is doing in Charlotte! Leave us a comment if this encouraged you!