(Jacksonville, Florida) A beautiful day on the beach--the perfect time for more than 1600 people to make an important decision--to follow Christ and get baptized in the Atlantic Ocean.
Rather hear the story?
Pastor Joby Martin, founder and lead pastor of The Church of Eleven22, the organization behind the baptisms said, “a whole bunch of people from our church show up and stand on the beach and celebrate as thousands of their brothers and sisters enter into the waters and declare Christ as their savior and Lord.”
The impact was immediate and dramatic:
“This guy builds houses for a living; he’s a hard-working guy but in his own language, he led his home in a very, very toxic way. This guy from work began to invite him to church and not only did Jesus save him but it softened his heart and as he walked out in that water to profess Jesus as his Lord and Savior, his daughter—she probably didn’t have the words as a 10-year-old to verbalize this—but what she was seeing and the tears coming out of her eyes were expressing is ‘everything is about to change in my life because Jesus has changed my dad’s life.”
And the follow up?
“We have what we call a discipleship journey. We just follow up with these people one-on-one, it’s very personal and just help them do whatever the next step of obedience the Good Shepherd is calling them to do.”