Statewide baptisms see one percent increase in 2004

[Editor's note: For the complete report on baptisms in Florida Baptist churches during 2004, click here.]

JACKSONVILLE (FBC)—Church never played a role in Tina Chick’s life while she was growing up in the blue grass of Kentucky. But when she and husband Mark were married, they yearned for something different for their family and made a commitment at his hometown church. “I joined thinking I’ll follow God, so I was baptized, but I never grew in my faith.”

After moving to Jacksonville a friend took the couple to Hibernia Baptist Church in Orange Park where Chick, 36, realized that she was lacking “a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.”

The mother of two noted: “My ears had been opened to the truth. I didn’t know Jesus. I had never accepted Him as Lord of my life.”

Chick and her husband Mark were baptized again at Hibernia, but this time the experience has been different, she said. “Now He (God) has changed my life. I have hope, I have eternal life. I know that I am growing because I want for things that are good and I want God to lead my life. My desires are different.”

As an outreach leader at Hibernia, Chick now enthusiastically shares her faith with others.

The Chicks are two of the 34,534 persons who passed through baptismal waters of Florida Baptist churches in 2004.

After a year of decline, Florida Baptist churches increased baptisms by nearly one percent in 2004 over the 34,274 persons baptized in 2003.

“We were thrilled we had an increase at all,” said David Burton, director of the Florida Baptist Convention’s evangelism division.

Convention officials had been concerned that the hurricanes might have drastically affected the number of baptisms, Burton explained.

Over 260 churches sustained damage when the four hurricanes hit Florida. Many churches have only recently been able to get back in their buildings. Also, almost all Florida churches cancelled worship services at least twice during the aberrant storm season.

Numbers of decisions are “important,” said Burton, “because they represent souls won to the Lord. Souls are our greatest burden. Every soul that is saved is so precious.”

As Burton travels the state challenging Florida Baptists to become more evangelistically focused, he said, “The key word is intentionality. We encourage people to preach, teach and share. It is fine to have an evangelistic lifestyle, but we also need to proclaim it and speak it through personal soulwinning.”

The division has adopted several strategies to heighten the awareness of evangelism during 2005, said Burton, including youth evangelism camps and conferences and “Consumed with Hope” statewide revivals. A plan jointly developed with the Convention’s Sunday School Department will designate Sept. 18 as “Celebration Sunday “that would blend high attendance with the FISH evangelistic outreach.

A strategy is also being developed to help churches that baptized less than 20 new converts in 2004, Burton said.

Some may see this as an overwhelming task. According to the 2004 Annual Church Profile, 436 Florida Baptist churches did not baptize anyone and another 203 churches did not report at all. Added to this is 1,205 churches that baptized between 2-9 persons and 660 churches that baptized between 10-25 persons. That’s nearly 2,504 churches that baptized less than 25 persons in 2004.

Of Florida Baptists’ 2,796 churches, 292 churches baptized more than 25 new converts in 2004—46 of those reported more than 100.

These included perennial leaders First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, 593 baptisms; Church at the Mall in Lakeland, 454 baptisms; First Baptist Church of Oviedo, 401 baptisms; and Idlewild Baptist Church in Tampa, 393 baptisms.

But Burton contends that if every church is “intentional” in evangelistic outreach, every congregation could at least double their baptisms. “We would go to the next level in the number of baptisms.”

Additionally, he suggested: “Revival would break out in Florida. It’s a God thing, but it has to start with the local church.”

First Baptist Church of Naples made great strides in 2004, baptizing 323 new believers after a decade when baptisms wavered between 123 and 242 each year.

Pastor Hayes Wicker credited the increase to 13 years of “building on the basics” that included outreach, Bible study and ministry groups. Invitations to unite with the church are offered three times each week and an emphasis is placed on “drawing the net” with immediate follow-up of visitors and new members. “We are steadily increasing hooks and lures in the water,” Wicker said.

But perhaps most importantly, the church began praying that God would increase their annual baptisms by more than 100 in 2004, said Wicker. The prayers brought an intentionality to their evangelistic efforts.

Building on the basics worked for the seven-year-old Hibernia Church that meets in an Orange Park school and baptizes in a horse trough.

Pastor Scott Yirka attributes the church’s 111 baptisms in 2004 to a focus on Bible study groups, door-to-door evangelism, following up on prospects and challenging people to “bring friends in so we can share the Gospel.”

Citing Tina Chick as an example, Yirka added, “We must teach the new believers in the church to do outreach, to do evangelism, and they must see us as pastors and leaders doing evangelism in our daily lives.”

In 2004 the 75-member First Baptist Church of Florida City baptized 36 new members, which means statistically that for every two church members a new believer was brought to new faith in Christ, giving the congregation a two-to-one ratio when comparing resident members to baptisms.

Such a comparison also illustrates the health of a church. Among all Florida Baptist congregations, it took 23 members to bring one new believer to faith, a 1-to-23 ratio.

Florida City First pastor John Horbelt said his congregation and especially a senior deacon are committed to bringing in new believers through Bible study and one-to-one witnessing. But he added, “God has done it all. He brought us good teachers and a fellowship where the love of God is shared.”

As president of the Florida Baptist State Convention, Wicker called on Florida Baptists to baptize 100,000 new believers in 2005. This parallels a challenge issued by Southern Baptist Convention president Bobby Welch for Southern Baptists to baptize a million in 2005.

“My dream is to see revival in Florida,” said Wicker. “The only way 100,000 will be baptized is to see revival break out. It won’t happen with business as usual.”

The key, he noted, is “for us to do more and do better. If we are witnessing to 20 people a week, we need to witness to 40. The more seeds you sow, the more fruits you will harvest.”

Wicker added, “I believe God is doing a new thing in Florida. Out of the heartache of the hurricanes, God will bring good.”