More Than 1,000 Baptized at California’s Pirate’s Cove: It’s a ‘Spiritual Awakening’
Michael Foust
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By Michael Foust, Crosswalk.com
The pastor of a California church that led a mass baptism event at historic Pirate's Cove over the weekend says society is in the midst of a spiritual awakening, fueled by a search for meaning and purpose that emerged from the isolation of the COVID pandemic.
Pastor Mark Francey of Oceans Church led the fourth-annual Baptize California event at Pirate’s Cove in Corona del Mar on Saturday, where more than 1,000 people were baptized at a site best known for the mass baptisms led by Chuck Smith during the Jesus Movement of the 1960s and 1970s.
Like previous years, this year’s Baptize California brought together multiple churches from across the region, reflecting what organizers say is a growing spirit of unity among congregations and a rising hunger for faith.
It included musical worship from Matt Crocker, Tiffany Hudson, Abbie Gamboa, and Oceans Music.
“Five years ago until now, there’s been a shift very comparable to what we witnessed in the 1960s with the Jesus Revolution,” Francey told the Orange County Register, referencing the COVID years.
“A spiritual awakening doesn’t come out of prosperity and peace,” he said. “Whether it’s geopolitical, whether it’s economic, there’s usually something that creates a hunger for people to want to turn back to God, and I think COVID, isolation, all the things we witnessed the last five years, from every sphere in our society, everything that could be shaken, was shaken.
“What that does,” he told the newspaper, “is it gets people asking the hard questions: ‘Where does our strength, confidence and purpose come from?’”
This year’s Baptize California is serving as a springboard for an even larger event, Baptize the World, on Pentecost Sunday, May 24, when churches across the globe will emphasize baptism and public declarations of faith.
“We feel like God wants to make that the day the church celebrates water baptism,” Francey told the Orange County Register.
“I believe part of what we’re doing is God re-excavating a buried church truth,” he said, citing Acts 2 in the Bible, which tells the story of Pentecost. “When it was born, it says 3,000 believed and 3,000 got baptized. That’s our goal: to get the Christian world celebrating baptism on Pentecost Sunday.”
Over the past four years, the events organized by Oceans Church – Baptize SoCal, Baptize California, and Baptize America – have brought together some 1,600 churches and led to more than 50,000 baptisms.
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2,100 Baptized at ‘Jesus Revolution’ Event
Photo Credit: ©Baptist California
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
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