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:

• We see people put their trust in Jesus for the first time
• Others take a huge step of personal obedience by going from “private to public” when it comes to pursuing a life of 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 great System of Care for those involved.

The System of Care is a highly defined process that offers the greatest level of love, support and encouragement in a chaotic moment.

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 people?

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 as to protect the moment for each person.  A good system of care moves people along without them realizing there is a process happening behind the scenes.

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 allows you to focus on the individual, not on the details
• A clear System of Care makes it easy for people to jump in and contribute
• A System of Care takes the heart of a 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.