Is God Calling You to Be Baptized Tomorrow?

From Mars Hill Downtown:

"He truly doesn't care that you've messed up. He just wants you to come to him right now. God has been working on my heart, he's never quit calling me. I just wanted to get up and publicly say, 'Thank you, God.' I just wanted to praise him and tell him that, 'This is it, this is the change, this is the line where I cross over, and it's no more about me.'"

If you understand who Jesus is and what he’s done for you, and he’s calling you to make a public proclamation of your faith, then take the plunge! Tomorrow, we’re having a massive Easter Celebration at Qwest Field, for which we'll have 20 baptism tanks. We're praying for over 500 baptisms. If you’ve never been baptized as a believer in Jesus*, then we’d like to invite you to be baptized at the celebration. Please sign up by clicking here, and filling out the form on the right side of the page. Here are a few suggestions to prepare for your baptism:

Tell your Community Group: If you haven’t already, tell your Community Group that you’re getting baptized on Easter so they can support you.
Invite your family, coworkers, and neighbors: If you’re planning on being baptized, invite everyone you know and explain to them that for you this is important, like a birthday.
Throw an after-party: set up a Facebook event and invite everyone in your network to celebrate with you.

As you process whether tomorrow is the day you want to publicly declare your faith, here are stories from around the campuses about what Easter baptisms are all about.

Corrin and Alex at the U-District campus remember why 2010 was the best Easter ever for that campus—and why this year will in all likelihood top it:

"It was an interesting process to convince Kane Hall to let us bring 500 gallons of water into the lobby for baptisms (especially since they won’t even allow 8 oz. containers of tea). The conversation went something like this: ‘You want to do what?’ ‘We want to dunk students in a tank of water to symbolize their public faith in Jesus.’ "And believe it or not, it happened! I can’t say that I’d had any prior experience managing a baptism operation so it was a personal challenge to organize the process, running around making sure people had clothing and towels, and it was amazing to see 400 people squeezed into the lobby of Kane Hall singing and worshiping Jesus.

Bree from Albuquerque talks about why she's getting baptized this Easter:

"Why now? God’s really been pressing obedience into my mind. This is a good thing, and we’re commanded to do it. I’ve just now been picking up the slack on where this all can’t just be theory. Things like serving, and giving, and so on. We need to do these things. Jesus tells us to, but He is also the one that did them. That is what I think is so cool about this! Jesus completely taught by example about baptism. He didn’t just say, you’re following me so I need to dunk you, but He went and basically argued with his cousin that He needed to be baptized as much as we do, as a human. That is crazy and so encouraging. I’m not just doing this because we’re told to, but we do it because He did as well. That is amazing…sorry for the word vomit; I guess I’m more excited than I thought."

Jen from West Seattle remembers the anniversary of her baptism this week:

I remember that day pretty clearly. It was not spontaneous. It was a long journey of questioning and praying and preparing to take that step. I had been a Christian for three years and was still working out the details of what that meant. But God, as he has done often in my life, decided to put the full-court press on me, coming at me through the testimonies of friends, through various studies and readings, and through a stirring in my heart I could not shake. It was time, and I was nervous. For me this meant no turning back. If I was going to do this, I had better mean it. The decision was made. I even managed to convince my mother to fly again to be there. The date was set, April 18th, 2004.

One of our favorite moments as a church, and the last time the whole church came together for one baptism celebration, was at Alki beach in 2007:

Read more about baptism on the blog (in particular, this post from Pastor Mark on what baptism means), and on the Easter page tab, where you can also sign up to be baptized. (Note: You do not have to sign up beforehand in order to be baptized tomorrow. It's just a way of helping us plan. Plenty of people will decide to be baptized then and there at Qwest.) Watch more baptism videos after the jump:

Pastor Jamie's son, Orin, was baptized this January: