The flags, signs and blue T-shirts in the crowd of 600 people gathered in Gulf Shores let passersby know something was up. 3Circle Church was baptizing 135 people who had trusted Christ as Savior and were celebrating new life.
Baptism on a Sunday morning in a church building can be intimidating for some people, said Jeremy Stevens, creative director for 3Circle Church in Fairhope.
“In our main campus, there could be 1,200 people in the room, and you’re up there and the camera is on you, and the lights are on you,” Stevens said.
But beach baptism takes the pressure off, he said.
“To me, it’s what baptism is meant to be — your friends, your family, your small group there watching you, applauding, going crazy as soon as you come out of the water,” Stevens said. “It’s supposed to be the people you love the most and who are the closest to you seeing you make this decision and applauding you through it.
“It relieves some of the pressure of being the sole focus of the whole congregation on a Sunday morning.”
Location
Beach baptisms at 3Circle, a church with five campuses — three in Baldwin County, one in Mobile and one in Thomasville — began during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when leaders had to rethink baptizing multiple people in one tub of water.
That year, they planned to meet on the beach in August and baptize people in the midst of the beautiful scenery of Gulf Shores, Stevens said, but when they arrived, bad weather prompted red flags, which warn people to stay out of the water.
“The good news about Gulf Shores is that right across the street there is Lake Shelby. It almost meets right up to the ocean,” Stevens said.
Lake Shelby at Gulf State Park has picnic tables, pavilions and a playground — a great setup for outdoor baptisms, Stevens said. 3Circle Church, with a name derived from Acts 1:8, has hosted baptisms four times now at that location.
The most recent time was Aug. 27, and it was their “biggest year yet,” Stevens said. They started advertising several weeks in advance, urging people to participate if they had not followed through with believer’s baptism.
“People just sign up for it. We have them meet with a pastor and ask questions about their faith journey,” Stevens said. “We make sure before we baptize somebody that they’re actually ready.”
Participants drove from all five campuses to meet at Gulf Shores, and they found a check-in table to assign them to one of five lanes where they would be baptized.
“For instance, there’s a lane that’s pretty much family ministry, so the youth pastors and kids pastors are there,” Stevens said. “Anybody in that age range, that’s their lane. They go out, and their pastor gets to baptize them.”
Chris Bell, the lead pastor, spoke to the crowd about the importance of baptism and everyone prayed together, Stevens recounted. It took about half an hour to baptize every candidate, he said, and people stayed for food and fellowship afterward.
“This year we baptized a young couple who were dating, and then as soon as they got back to shore, he proposed,” Stevens said. “No one expected that, but it was an amazing moment.”
Model
Stevens encourages other churches to consider outdoor baptisms if they have the opportunity.
“I always love to see the wide variety of diversity there,” he said. “You’ve got 8-year-olds up to 80-year-olds getting baptized. You have individuals, couples and families. You have Black, white, Hispanic and everything in between.”
Being baptized in nature has a different feel than “a tub filled with water on the stage,” he said.
“People walk by and wonder what’s going on. It’s a time to let them know life change is happening in the midst of this chaotic world we live in.”
Though baptism isn’t tied to salvation, it’s a way to show the world a person is following Christ, Stevens said.
“Now all of a sudden, I have an extra layer of accountability. I have an extra layer, even, of responsibility to the Church, and those people in the congregation have a responsibility to hold me accountable. It’s being part of a family and saying we’re all in this together,” he said.
Trey Sullins, a family pastor of 3Circle, told of a woman who went to the event alone.
“She was so excited to be getting baptized. As her turn was coming up, she turned to me and said, ‘I can’t believe that three months ago I was in rehab, certain my life was done. Now I get to celebrate a new life and a new start. Can you believe it?’ After she was baptized, she came running up to me for a hug, saying, ‘I can’t believe this has happened.’”
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