400 Baptized at Georgia Church in One Sunday: ‘There’s a Fresh Awakening’

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A Georgia church is celebrating a powerful display of faith after 400 people were baptized on a single Sunday in what church leaders say is a movement of God.

Bethlehem Church in Winder, Ga., became the scene of an extraordinary outpouring of God on March 1 when a regular church service turned into a mass baptism event across its three campuses. Lead Pastor Jason Britt told the Christian Index that 13 baptisms were planned, while 387 more followed in response to the invitation.

Britt said he was in the middle of a sermon series on the Holy Spirit titled “Familiar Stranger,” one that examined what he described as “the person, power, and presence of the Holy Spirit.” As he prepared to preach on Acts 2 and the arrival of the Spirit at Pentecost, he said he felt the Lord directing him not simply to preach repentance and faith, but also to urge people to respond through baptism without delay.

“I felt prompted, and I read it with fresh eyes. It says, ‘Repent and be baptized,’ and I felt like the Holy Spirit pressed that on me,” Britt told the Index.

In many Baptist churches, baptisms are planned in advance, with those being baptized arriving prepared with a change of clothes. That Sunday, though, people came forward in their everyday street clothes, ready to respond in obedience. The congregation is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

The pastor added that the moment stretched far beyond the normal service schedule as the congregation remained in place. “People didn’t want to leave,” Britt said. “The 9 a.m. service went into the 11 a.m. service. Services were an hour and a half to two hours. Parking lots were packed.”

Incredibly, some people watching the early service online felt led to come in person and drove to the later service, ready to be baptized.

Britt said he is confident God is on the move – not only in his community but far beyond it.

“I don’t want to jump out and say ‘revival,’ but I do think there’s a fresh awakening,” he told the Index. “It’s hard to talk about revival until you look back. In the Great Awakening, they didn’t know they were in what we now call the Great Awakening – they just knew God was doing something.”

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Photo Credit: ©Facebook / Bethlehem Church

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel. 

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