Wow, the Lord has used Baptize 100 to teach us a great deal this year. It is even hard to know where to start. First, I want to say that our God is faithful beyond anything we can imagine. As we made prayer our first priority, He has answered one prayer after another. Many people have watched family members and friends take steps toward Christ and show more interest in knowing Him than they ever have before.
 
Other people have said the answer to prayer has been a change in their own heart and lifestyle. What I mean by this is, our vision for 2019 to Baptize 100 people through prayer and gospel
conversations challenged all of us to come to grips with the question, “How am I personally living out the Great Commission?” And it resulted in more people stepping out in faith to engage
their family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers in obedience to the Lord’s leading. As these steps of faith were taken, the Lord opened the door for literally hundreds of gospel conversations to take place.
 
We have also learned that reaching people for Christ can be a long game at times, with some people needing more than one year to trust and follow Him. At the same time we can’t thank
the Lord enough for blessing us with the privilege of seeing 113 people baptized this year. Can you believe that? 113 people have confessed Christ and obeyed Him in baptism over the past 10 months. Take a moment to praise Him right now for this incredible blessing!

With that said, I would love to share just one of the many stories that we have seen the Lord orchestrate this year. This is the story of Britt Lewis and his family:
“When I was 30 I trusted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. But I was at a church where I didn’t feel supported, I was busy raising kids, life got in the way and following Jesus became an afterthought. Fast forward, I was blessed to meet and marry Carley. She shared her love for Jesus and that motivated me to re-dedicate my life to Him. We started searching for a church that would fit all the aspects of our blended family. Jersey became that church from our very first
visit, the music, the message, the people, we felt right at home. Our daughter Lorey and her son Clay came with us as well. 
Shortly after we were attending, Lorey trusted in Jesus during one of Pastor John’s sermon and was baptized in the pond, and recently dedicated her son. Then, Carley talked me into joining the new member class and Lorey joined us. We met with Todd, and the Lord used him and Carley to open my heart to obey Jesus in baptism at the pond a year after Lorey. After this I invited our sons Anthoney and Hunter to attend the Men’s Night. Over the years, both boys joked that any church they walked into would burn down. Thankfully that didn’t happen on Men’s Night and
they both agreed to attend with me with no expectations except to win the OSU tickets. Unfortunately that didn’t happen either, but something infinitely more important did occur. The message that night touched their hearts and they both, without talking to each other, trusted in Jesus and were baptized. It was an experience that words will not do justice. It was simply a proud moment for me to be a part of their journey with Jesus.  We are truly blessed as a family and appreciate our Jersey Family. God has done some amazing work in our lives in the last year and we are so excited to continue this journey with not only our family but with our church family as well.”

Praise God! Talk about a family that has been transformed by the power of the gospel. We will never know the full eternal impact of Baptize 100 this side of heaven. However, we cannot thank the Lord enough for everything He has allowed us to be apart of and personally witness over the past year.