People in the water being baptized serves as a highlight and significant spiritual marker in the life of an individual and a church. Recently, I polled a few of our highest baptizing church plants in Louisiana and found that they have 5 intentional practices that every church can do to increase baptisms:
1. Pray & Share the Gospel
If you don’t have anybody to baptize, you need to ask the question, “Are we communicating the gospel clearly to our community?” It may be that you are in a hard soil area and cultivation will take time. That’s fine. But the promise of the word of God is to produce results (Isaiah 55:11). God’s working in all our communities to bring people to himself (1 Corinthians 5:19-21). As we pray and share, planting seeds in our communities, eventually we can expect a harvest (Psalm 126:6). If you need some ideas, see my article Proven Ways to Cultivate Relationships and Plant Seeds in Your Community.
2. Keep a current list of potential candidates
Write down the names of people in your fellowship that you’re not sure of their relation to Christ and/or if they’ve followed the Lord through believer’s baptism. Share it with core leaders and ask them to pray. Plan on systematically talking with them about making this important step in their faith journey. Also, teach parents how to look for signs of God’s work in the lives of their children and when they begin to respond, put them on the list and begin to pray for them.
3. Put it on the church calendar
As you do calendar planning, go ahead and put at least two dates for baptisms on the calendar. Announce these regularly. Expect to have candidates. Pray and share the Gospel. Work the list.
4. Get info out about Believer’s Baptism
Teach on it regularly. Produce a brochure and keep it in a well trafficked area in your building and on your website. I’ve also heard of churches doing brief Informational meetings about baptism before and after church. Don’t assume people realize the importance and biblical reasons for baptism. Here’s a sample brochure that my current church has utilized.
5. Make it a celebration
Baptism is an opportunity to celebrate God’s work in the heart of human being. Jesus died so that work could be done! A person has left the kingdom of darkness and entered the kingdom of light (Colossians 1:13)! Even the angels in heaven throw a party when this happens (Luke 15:10)!. Let’s celebrate! Make it a big deal. Send out invitations, post pics, share videos! We throw parties for much less, so a thing that makes heaven party and busts people out of the kingdom of darkness should instigate a celebration!
An evangelistic culture must be cultivated & maintained with intentionality. We have a command from Jesus to go & baptize (Matthew 28:18-20). We have so many people without a relationship with Christ. Get intentional about moving people to understand & respond to the Gospel & celebrate it through baptism.
