{"id":9650,"date":"2024-03-22T10:35:41","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T14:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=9650"},"modified":"2024-04-03T10:59:32","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T14:59:32","slug":"megachurch-in-tennessee-performs-93-spontaneous-baptisms-in-one-day-god-just-spoke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2024\/03\/megachurch-in-tennessee-performs-93-spontaneous-baptisms-in-one-day-god-just-spoke.html","title":{"rendered":"Megachurch in Tennessee Performs 93 Spontaneous Baptisms in One Day: ‘God Just Spoke’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Tennessee megachurch has baptized 93 people across four worship services in a single day, with the people professing their faith having reportedly not planned to do so in advance. First Baptist Church of Hendersonville, which has an average weekly worship attendance of around 3,600 people, baptized 93 people, the largest single-day number of baptisms the congregation has seen.<\/p>\n

There were 12 people baptized at the church’s 8:30 a.m. service, 22 people baptized at the 9:45 a.m. service, five baptized at a 9:45 a.m. service held at a different venue on campus and 54 baptized at the 11:00 a.m. service. FBC Hendersonville Senior Associate Pastor Bruce Raley told The Christian Post that while a lot of “preparation and prayer had gone into the day,” the people who were “baptized had not come to church prepared to be baptized.”<\/p>\n

“The 93 baptisms were spontaneous,” Raley said. “Those people did not come prepared to be baptized that day, but we were prepared for them to be baptized that day, and God just spoke, and they were obedient.” Raley also told CP that his church sees a lot of people move from other parts of the United States, with many of the newcomers having either “no faith background” or “a different faith background where baptism does not mean the same thing or it’s not emphasized.” He said, “We heard the stories of many on Sunday that this is really the first time that we have really heard about the biblical importance and the biblical meaning of baptism.”<\/p>\n