March 27, 2000
Six baptisms were set, but final total was 10
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___ARLINGTON--Six people were scheduled to be baptized at Impact Fellowship in Arlington March 12. But before the morning worship service concluded, a total of 10 had been symbolically raised to new life from the water.
___It was the maiden voyage for the church's new portable baptistry--built from the shell of a home shower stall bought at Home Depot the weekend before.
___The cost of the parts and the time spent engineering the unconventional baptistry were"a great investment," said Scott Callaham, associate pastor.
THE WAREHOUSE where Impact Fellowship meets serves as a worship and praise center for a Generation X congregation whose average age is 21.
___Impact Fellowship, which began meeting only last September, is a congregation geared toward Generation X, generally considered to be adults under the age of 34. The average age of those attending the new church is about 21, Callaham said.
___Most of the church's staff members--including Callaham and Pastor Jonathan Howes--are students at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. The church is sponsored by Lamar Baptist Church of Arlington and Bear Valley Community Church of Colleyville, in cooperation with Tarrant Baptist Association.
___The first person to be baptized March 12 was a young woman who is a student at the University of Texas at Arlington, Callaham said. She is a leader in a sorority there, and many of her sorority sisters came to the church service that morning.
___"She spent about 10 minutes telling her testimony," Callaham said. "It was real, authentic stuff about her spiritual journey."
___Her testimony made a big impact on those present, he explained.
___So did the testimony of the last person in the original baptismal line-up, a seminary student and missionary kid who realized his authentic profession of faith in Christ had come after his childhood baptism. The candidate's missionary father flew in from another state to perform the baptism.
___Rejoicing--loud applause and shouting--followed each baptism, Callaham said. And then after the six baptisms, the pastor extended an evangelistic invitation to those in attendance. Over the course of the next few minutes, four others came forward to publicly profess faith in Christ and be baptized.
___Given the casual nature of the church's worship style--others had been baptized in shorts and T-shirts rather than baptismal robes--the new believers were willing to be baptized on the spot, entering the baptismal water with what they wore to church that morning, Callaham said.
___One of those baptized in the second round was a fraternity leader from UTA, who professed faith in Christ and then testified to a number of his fraternity brothers who had come to church with him.
___The morning's events weren't caused by the kind of "emotional manipulation like you see on TV," Callaham said. A witness was given, an invitation was offered, and people just started coming forward.
___The baptismal service was a banner day for the church in other ways, as well. Attendance was more than 100--double the number attending in the weeks prior--and included friends and family members of the baptismal candidates who had come from all over the United States.
___For more information about Impact Fellowship, visit the church's website at www.impactfellowship.com.
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