Cory Lebovitz

This past weekend we celebrated something that has come to be one of my favorite parts of working at 12Stone Church. From time to time we will create space in a weekend service for a special response moment at the end of service. We have affectionately come to call these weekends “Open Baptism” weekends.

“Open Baptism” is unique because it is a moment where we share the good news of Jesus and invite people to say yes to Him and in that same moment go public with their new faith through water baptism.

I love our open baptism weekends for a number of reasons:

• People put their trust in Jesus for the first time
• Others take a huge step of personal obedience by going from “private to public” with their faith
• The Church is encouraged and reminded why we exist

While all of these things fire me up, one of the best things I get to watch on Open Baptism weekend is a really well defined System of Care for those involved.

A System of Care is a highly defined process that offers the greatest level of love, support and encouragement in a chaotic moment. (Click to tweet)

When you have a clear system of care, individuals are freed up in the moment to both work a plan and listen for Holy Spirit prompts. (Click to tweet) When you have a good system in place, people can focus on providing care instead of worrying about logistics.

Without making this post too long with details, I will tell you that our System of Care for Open Baptism will often have more volunteers involved than people being baptized. If 30 people are baptized there are probably 35-45 people involved in the system of care. Why do we include so many volunteers?

It only takes 1-2 people to perform the mechanics of a baptism. We involve many people because the goal is not to “get the job done” – it is to create a conveyer-belt of care so each person can stay in the moment and not be distracted by steps in a process. Each person who is baptized has 8-10 people tending specifically to him or her during their response moment.

A System of Care must be unique for your environment, however here are a few key things to know about System’s of Care:

• A System of Care keeps us focused on the individual, not on the details
• The more defined the System of Care, the easier it is for people to jump in and participate
• A System of Care takes the heart of the point leader and expresses it through the hands of many (Click to tweet)

*If interested in more details about our Open Baptism process, please check out the 12Stone Free Resource Page. Click here to find helpful information about planning for an Open Baptism.