FRIDAY, 9/29
SIXTEENTH NIGHT
Tonight was a big night for one of the teens, "Gina." She’s the one who has sung and done interpretive dance for us. She brought around 15 young people, including many pre-teens, so she won a computer. The young people added up to around 20 kids. This also brought up our sagging overall attendance to 50-60 people. What it showed me is that we could have made a major impact if we actually had some programs for teens. These kids are coming despite the fact that the program is not reaching them at all. They roll in groups and if you get one person committed, the rest will come just to support them and hang out. If we would have done some 3-on-3 basketball tournaments and stuff, we would have reached hundreds of teens. I think it also shows how important it was to meet with them last night because they now have a much stronger connection to us.
The subject was baptism. Again, most of the time was spent in condemning any other kind of baptism but by immersion. I wish we would have just talked about its meaning and took people to the Cross. Instead, it was another argumentative presentation. The evangelist also took like 30 minutes to speak to the kids. Unfortunately, it was more of the same and this time he focused on prison. He told them that prison is worse than the movies show. He implied that they wanted to go to prison but then he graphically talked repeatedly about how they will rape you there. He went on and on and on about it and it was way too graphic and none of the kids have any desire to go to jail. None are on drugs or in gangs either.
At the end he made an appeal for people to stand if they wanted to be baptized. Six of the pre-teens who came for the first time stood as well as three adults. We were going to baptize one man whose brother died so he’s leaving for a while and wanted to be baptized before he left. However, two other people who made their stands also decided to be baptized that evening.
We went up to the church and had a ceremony. There was pressure being put on to baptize the young kids but luckily we said that we needed to teach them and work with them before that. One of the kids who wanted to be baptized asked me what the pool was for when he saw it. Yes, I’m not kidding, he was going to be baptized even though he had no clue what was going on. The kids were all together and just stood up and then we were going to dunk them with no understanding at all. So, we’ll see what happens with that.
SIXTEENTH NIGHT
Tonight was a big night for one of the teens, "Gina." She’s the one who has sung and done interpretive dance for us. She brought around 15 young people, including many pre-teens, so she won a computer. The young people added up to around 20 kids. This also brought up our sagging overall attendance to 50-60 people. What it showed me is that we could have made a major impact if we actually had some programs for teens. These kids are coming despite the fact that the program is not reaching them at all. They roll in groups and if you get one person committed, the rest will come just to support them and hang out. If we would have done some 3-on-3 basketball tournaments and stuff, we would have reached hundreds of teens. I think it also shows how important it was to meet with them last night because they now have a much stronger connection to us.
The subject was baptism. Again, most of the time was spent in condemning any other kind of baptism but by immersion. I wish we would have just talked about its meaning and took people to the Cross. Instead, it was another argumentative presentation. The evangelist also took like 30 minutes to speak to the kids. Unfortunately, it was more of the same and this time he focused on prison. He told them that prison is worse than the movies show. He implied that they wanted to go to prison but then he graphically talked repeatedly about how they will rape you there. He went on and on and on about it and it was way too graphic and none of the kids have any desire to go to jail. None are on drugs or in gangs either.
At the end he made an appeal for people to stand if they wanted to be baptized. Six of the pre-teens who came for the first time stood as well as three adults. We were going to baptize one man whose brother died so he’s leaving for a while and wanted to be baptized before he left. However, two other people who made their stands also decided to be baptized that evening.
We went up to the church and had a ceremony. There was pressure being put on to baptize the young kids but luckily we said that we needed to teach them and work with them before that. One of the kids who wanted to be baptized asked me what the pool was for when he saw it. Yes, I’m not kidding, he was going to be baptized even though he had no clue what was going on. The kids were all together and just stood up and then we were going to dunk them with no understanding at all. So, we’ll see what happens with that.
Comments
They got baptized that very evening?
When does the evangelistic series end?
Yes, there were three people baptized. I think these three were strong baptismal candidates. They've been coming every night and have good relationships with people in the church which also helps a lot.
Baptismal readiness is a key issue that I'll raise in one of the main posts so all will see it and not just the faithful who read comments. I have some serious questions about it.