In 2021, Dickson Baptist looked back and saw a drought of baptisms. They hadn’t baptised anyone for three years. They knew they hadn’t been talking about baptism regularly or been proactive in inviting people to consider baptism.
So, they became more intentional in mentioning baptism and started to see some baptisms. But most of the baptisms were people who’d been Christian for a while and had decided on their own initiative to get baptised.
In 2022, Matt Glowacki, Senior Pastor, went to the Regional Teams Conference and heard about the National Baptism Week initiative. At the end of 2023, Dickson Baptist began the Building a Discipleship Culture and one of the intensives was about identifying the key steps of faith for people and making it easy for people to take these steps.
“From my end, the biggest change that needed to happen was to think through the process of how we baptise,” explains Matt, “it was a slow process very dependent on me.” The process involved reading through a book and meetings with Matt multiple times, which often took three to four months.
It was also a process that didn’t work for everyone. For example, a man at their church with mental health challenges had expressed interest in being baptised but wasn’t going to be able to go through the usual process of reading the book and discussing baptism. “It just wasn’t going to happen,” says Matt. Another pastor challenged Matt, “You trust he’s put his faith in Jesus. Your process is the problem here, not his faith. You need to decide at what point you’re willing to baptise him.”
This line of questioning grew, and Matt asked himself and his team, “what do we really need from people? What convictions do they need to have?”.
So, Dickson Baptist began to look at simplify their baptism process. They would focus on asking people to make three simple commitments: accepting Jesus as their saviour, committing to following Jesus as their Lord, and committing to being an active part of the body of Christ. They decided to produce three brief videos to be shared on the church website.
Around this time, Amelia expressed interest in being baptised. Amelia had grown up in the church but has lost sight of God as a teen. The church had been praying for her for many years, and it was a joy to see her reconnect with the church community and with her faith.
When Amelia expressed interest in getting baptised it was motivation for Matt to pick up the pace and write, edit and publish the three brief baptism talks. The videos are published on the church website with a form for people to fill out if they’re ready to discuss next steps with someone from the church. Once someone fills out the form, they are invited to meet with Matt or another minister from the church once or twice to discuss the commitments of baptism, before arranging a date to be baptised.
“Amelia became a catalyst to sort out the logistics,” explains Matt, “which in turn became the catalyst for others to follow this new pathway”.
Shortly after, Mitch, a teen in the church’s youth ministry, wanted to explore baptism more. Mitch watched the videos with his parents and one night at the evening service, told Matt he wanted to be baptised. Matt met with him a couple of times and lined him up to be baptised alongside Amelia in August 2024. It was exciting to see other youth from the youth group coming along to church to support Mitch as he took this step of faith.
“What was really special was that as part of their baptisms both Amelia and Mitch shared their stories of faith,” reflects Matt. While they had different stories of faith, they were both an encouragement to the congregation. Seeing people take baptism seriously has demonstrated what committing to live for Christ looks like. Matt can see other people in the congregation at various stages of exploring what baptism means for them. Some people are still thinking it through, others have expressed they are ready and waiting for the next opportunity. For some it has prompted to think about their own faith, and where they are at with Jesus.
Dickson Baptist has already locked in two baptism Sundays in 2025, one in March and one in October. They will preach on baptism and baptise anyone who is ready to make the commitment. Baptism is becoming a bigger part of the conversation and agenda at Dickson Baptist.
“We’ll keep pointing to the opportunity for people to explore baptism,” says Matt, “we’ll keep pointing people to the website and we’ll keep it in the calendar. We are journeying with people are different stages and taking the time to figure out where they are at but having it simple and clear means that people can understand the commitment and take the next step when they are ready”.
For more resources for churches and leaders wanting to elevate a culture of Baptism, check out the Baptism Hub on the Crossover website.
