On Pentecost Sunday, over 28,000 people were baptized across the United States as part of a nationwide revival event. In collaboration with Baptize America, more than 600 churches hosted over 1,000 separate baptisms events where individuals publicly professed their faith in Jesus Christ.
Mark Francey, pastor of Oceans Church in California and the founder of Baptize America, told The Christian Post that his inspiration for the event “burst out of a time of prayer I was having with Jesus a couple of years ago, when I had an open vision.”
He described seeing Pirate's Cove in California as the starting point, “and this progression, from Southern California to all of California, to America, and to the ends of the earth.”
Francey recounted, “I heard that small still voice, which many Christians are familiar with, just placing these really clear thoughts in my heart. The key moment was when His voice said to do it on the day of Pentecost. That's when the church was born.”
“It felt like He wanted to make Pentecost Sunday a day when the Christian world would truly celebrate, and maybe even the lost world would know that this is a day they can walk into a church and get baptized anywhere,” he stated.
Some of the largest churches in America participated in the event, with Francey noting, “probably five out of the 10 largest churches in the country were part of this and were huge advocates. That definitely helped create critical mass, which was amazing.”
While the exact number of baptisms was still being finalized, Francey estimated that “it was between 28,000 and 29,000 people, possibly as many as 30,000.”
The event also had an international component, with “around 1,100 people being baptized via Baptize Canada, as well as smaller events being held in Paraguay and Sweden.”
Francey previously organized Baptize California in May, an annual event in Huntington Beach that saw a little over 7,700 people make public decisions for Christ, with approximately 1,100 of those baptisms happening “on the spot,” rather than through pre-registration, according to Francey.
