Story Behind the Stories: Fun Stuff
If you’re just tuning in, Sunday was a day for the history books at the Summit Church. We saw 140 people get baptized among our seven services. You can read more about that incredible event here, but the rest of this week’s posts are dedicated to the story behind the stories.
It was fun.
It was exhausting, stressful, nail-biting, heart attack-inducing, stomach acid-churning, immune system-destroying, but doggone it, it was fun.
A big baptism brings big challenges. You have two choices: laugh about ’em or throw yourself in front of a moving train. Unfortunately, we’re nowhere near a train track. So I chose to laugh.
Laughing is all you can do when your three baptisteries pose three challenges. At our Cole Mill campus, the heater went haywire to the point that when Campus Pastor Rick showed up on Sunday morning, the water temperature was a cool 115 degrees. I think you call that a cannibaptism.
At our West Club campus, the baptistery has sat dormant for a while (we meet in an older church building). Campus Pastor Brad needed to be updated on his tetanus shots due to the fine layer of rust in the bottom of the tub.
Brier Creek saw 123 of the 140 baptisms. Because we provided black t-shirts and shorts for everyone, and because those shirts were new, and because black dye apparently starts to bleed after a while, the baptistery looked like something out of a horror flick titled Baptistery of Darkness. (The guys who wrote Facing the Giants have already sought exclusive movie rights.)
Let’s see…other fun stuff…
- Watching pastors walk around after the PM service with towels wrapped around their waists. Odd.
- Getting the report that my 11 year old son was asking ladies if he could have their wet clothes when they were done so we could reuse them. Bold.
- Picking up bath mats out of the floors of bathrooms where dozens of people have just drip-dried. Gross.
- Seeing a couple of hundred people stick around after the 10:45 Brier Creek service for what would turn out to be a nearly two hour baptism service. Energizing.
Read all of the posts in this series:
I have pics of the nasty water if you want copies. It looks sick.
Click on the Baptistery of Darkness link. That IS your picture. 🙂