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NewSpring in Anderson, S.C., baptized 562 believers at a celebration staged in its parking lot Sept. 8. The church set up three above-ground pools in the parking lot and two pastors in each pool took about 90 minutes to baptize the 562 people, Tony Morgan, chief strategic officer at NewsSpring, told Baptist Press in a story posted Monday. Morgan said the party atmosphere of the event was appropriate because the ordinance is a celebration. "It's acknowledging a commitment that someone has made with Christ, and it's something to be celebrated," he said. "Actually, I personally see our event to be more consistent with the purpose of baptism people making a public statement of a faith commitment that they've made."The mass baptism event was the culmination of a five-week series preached by NewSpring pastor Perry Noble titled "Illuminate" during August in which he compared a life without Christ to a life with Christ. "Through that series we had around 800 people receive Christ," Morgan said. "So the final Sunday of the series Perry preached a message about baptism. In each of our four services, we baptized someone during the worship part of the service and then Perry taught about that."NewSpring began as a Bible study for college students in Noble's home in 1998, and soon a core group of people cast a vision for the church plant. In January 2000, 115 people gathered for NewSpring's first Sunday morning service on the campus of Anderson College, the website says. Six years later, they finished construction of a 2,500-seat auditorium and saw more than 900 people accept Christ and nearly 800 follow in baptism last year alone.As in the days of Noah....
