After setting record for baptisms in California, pastor wants to baptize America, then the world

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Thursday, May 23, 2024

In what has been dubbed the largest synchronized baptism in American history, more than 12,000 people were baptized in the name of Christ across California on Pentecost Sunday. The pastor who founded the movement to make it happen called Baptize California says he plans to take it across America and then the world.

“I think that when God wants to do something, he kind of creates the right atmosphere and ecosystem for it to happen,” Pastor Mark Francey of Oceans Church in Irvine, California, who started the newest baptism movement with his wife, Rachelle, told The Christian Post in an interview this week.

Francey, who founded his church five years ago, said he got a vision from God to promote baptism to help the local church about two years ago while praying.

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Acting on this vision, Francey said he and his church organized an event called Baptize Southern California last year, and nearly 4,200 people were baptized. In 2024, the church decided to go statewide with the baptism movement. And anchored by a flagship baptism site at the popular Huntington Beach, they reaped richly.

Just over 6,000 people were baptized at Huntington Beach, and another 6,000 were baptized in the rest of the state, Francey said.

"I don't know where God wants us to go. But we're kind of prepared for whatever He wants us to do," Francey told CP.

"Ultimately, our desire is to make the Day of Pentecost the day that Christendom celebrates water baptism," he said. "I think it kind of happens organically every once in a while, but the Book of Acts was obviously started with a prayer meeting that led to bold preaching in the public square, that led to a public declaration of faith that 3,000 believed, and then immediately, 3000 were baptized."

Francy said the success of the new baptism movement has been buoyed by ecumenical support from churches that have chosen to unite around common tenets of the faith, like water baptism.

"It wasn't just one denomination. It wasn't just one part of the body of Christ. We had the largest Baptist churches in the state. Churches like Sandals, … a lot of the big Baptist churches in the state were all a part of [Sunday] with some of the largest Evangelical churches, Pentecostal churches, charismatic churches, even at the Presbyterian Calvary Chapel Vineyard," Francey said. "To see it kind of cross a denominational threshold, … I think that what God blesses is unity, and when the church works together."

Francey said the movement doesn't just baptize people with no follow-up. Each person baptized at the events hosted by Baptize California will be provided with resources from an online database to help them connect with a local church of their choice.

"This isn't like a parachurch organization that's going to kind of blow in and blow out, just get a crowd and just trying to get them (people) hyped. Our heart was to unite the local church, to work together, to really reach our world, and then to build a kingdom by connecting all of these people that are making a decision to get connected to the local church," Francey said. "For us, the win isn't the count of how many got baptized, really, it's going to be how that translates into how we are getting people connected to the local church."