Pasadena church keeps baptistery waters stirred

PASADENA—Most churches would be happy to say they baptized 100 people during a year. But First Baptist Church in Pasadena expects to baptize 100 more than last year.

Baptisms numbered 159 in 2008, and the church baptized 169 last year. This year, through October, 245 had stirred the baptismal waters.

J.J. Cox, youth minister at First Baptist Church in Pasadena, prepares to baptize three young women, while others await baptism. (PHOTO/Courtesy of First Baptist Church in Pasadena)

“It’s not like we’re doing anything unique. God is just blessing in a faithful way,” Pastor Charles Redmond said.

Redmond does not attach a cause/effect relationship to a visit he made to the Billy Graham Retreat Center in North Carolina earlier this year. But he noticed a upward trend in people making a decision to follow Christ after he returned and taught his people to use an evangelism tract.

“I felt impressed to come back and teach people to use it through the pulpit,” he said. At the conclusion of the service, worshippers took all 3,000 of the tracts. The church ordered another 3,000, and about half of those were taken the next Sunday.

“Very, very soon—almost immediately—we began to see people being saved beyond anything we had experienced,” Redmond said.

The Holy Spirit was the emphasis during Redmond’s visit to the Graham retreat center, and he brought that focus back to First Baptist Church.

“That’s never been one of our major emphases, so we began to teach what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit. I think God has honored that, and God has blessed that. But having said that, God has just spoken to a lot of hearts,” Redmond said.

Many in his congregation have brought more friends and neighbors to church, he noticed.

“We’ve tried every way in the world to share Christ where we are, just like all the other churches do. But the real key is if you can get those members, in their daily lives, bearing the witness of Christ however the Holy Spirit gives them opportunity. They’re around the people who need the Lord,” he said.

“We’re out of the trap of passing out a card and saying, ‘Go visit this person.’ We’re just saying, ‘We’re going to equip you to share Jesus and see what happens.’”

He preaches in two services each Sunday morning and at a community lunch each Tuesday that draws hundreds from outside First Baptist’s membership. His son, Jon, is associate pastor and preaches in the Sunday and Wednesday night services.

People continue making public professions of faith in all four services, Jon Redmond said.

“The preaching has not been anything fancy or out of the ordinary. There’s no gimmicks—just simple, biblical preaching,” he said.

Charles Redmond—now in his 21st year of ministry at the Pasadena church—agreed.

“Our style is different, which is refreshing, I’m sure, for our congregation. But though we do it in different ways, we’re both just simply preaching what the word of God says. We’re not trying to have a production. We’re just trying to teach what the word of God says,” he said.

Baptism can be a catalyst for the start of spiritual inner conversations in others, Jon Redmond said.

“The baptism experience is a sermon in itself. We’ve seen a lot of older people baptized, and when you see someone in their 80s … who barely has the physical strength to get in the baptistery and yet they go through the process, I think that says to other people who are watching that, ‘If she can do that, if he can do that, then I can do that,’” he said.

Those baptisms have the added effect of drawing others to the church, perhaps for the first time. First Baptist has seen visitors at baptisms rise this year after emphasizing the need for the person being baptized to invite others to the occasion.

“Many people who have just become a Christian, they don’t have many Christian friends. We say: ‘When you have a birthday party, you send invitations. So, when you’re going to be baptized, send invitations and invite friends to your baptism.’

“They may be coming out of friendship or family respect, but they’re going to be in that room, and they’re fixing to hear the gospel. And we’re going to plant seed, even if we don’t see all the fruit,” Charles Redmond said.

During each baptism, friends and family are asked to stand.

“It’s to magnify the fact that this is really a great deal,” he said. “A person getting saved is kind of a big event around here, and it’s a big event in heaven.

“We baptize a lot of people around here, and after every person, the congregation claps. It’s not like a clap at a Dallas Cowboy game. It’s a strong clap, but it’s a reverent clap. People are just rejoicing to see people saved.”

The congregation comes with an expectation not only that people will be saved, but also a sense that God is at work, he continued.

“There is an expectancy. You can feel that. We feel God is going to do some mighty things here that we haven’t even fathomed. We don’t know what they are, so we’re sure not trying to orchestrate them,” he explained.

Jon Redmond said the congregation has a warmth that others find inviting. An as example, he mentioned a support group for people with addictions of all kinds.

“They not only come to their meetings, but they come to church and are saved and are welcomed warmly. There’s not a holier-than-thou attitude in the church. I think we all just recognize that we’re all sinners, we all need God’s grace, and nobody is better than anyone else. Nobody is so bad they can’t be saved, and nobody is so good that they don’t need to be saved.”