Okay, so I’ll admit it: I’ve seen people get baptized so many times I’ve memorized that statement. But something was different this weekend…it was such an exciting time in the life of The Vine! Sunday we offered baptism for the first time, and it was amazing. I’m not sure if it was the small setting or the fact that I’ve got so much investment in the community and the people who attend the church…but i felt the Spirit big-time. We had an adult baptism at the 9:30 service, and then a baby baptism and a baby dedication at the 11:00 service. Adult baptism always sends chills down my spine because it reminds me of when I was baptized and what that symbolizes. It almost takes my breath away, and it makes me excited because the entire family of the gentleman who got baptized will be affected by his decision to follow Jesus!

The babies were, of course, absolutely precious. Tyler’s only 5 weeks old so he was quite content nestled in his dad’s arms, and Henry cracked me up…homeboy wanted to dive into the pool headfirst! Perhaps he has a future in Olympic swimming :-)

After baptism, we distributed Sharpies and asked people to write the names of people they knew who needed Jesus…it reaffirms why we do what we do to see real names of real people who don’t know the Lord. We’re praying that each of those people come to new life in Christ!

Also, I need to give props to our serve teams…apparently Satan wasn’t down with people giving their lives to Jesus because the spiritual warfare was in full effect…first we realized there was no outside faucet at our meeting location, so the enormous portable baptismal had to be filled with buckets of water, and then the breaker on the heating & air tripped (and we couldn’t find the breaker!) so it was a million degrees in the worship center…but our tireless serve-team heroes solved both problems and Satan’s schemes were defeated, once again! And never fear…Tanner and Carley were completely oblivious to all the drama…can you imagine sleeping this soundly? Wow.