Last Sunday, Baptize SoCal marked the 50th anniversary of the Jesus Movement with a record-breaking ceremony in southern California. Over 4,000 individuals accepted Jesus Christ and entered the Christian church through water baptism at Pirate’s Cove. Oceans Church, a ministry located in Orange County, organized the event, which involved 280 churches and 8,000 attendees on Pentecost Sunday, commemorating the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. The event was dubbed the “biggest water baptism in history.”
“What an amazing and historic day,” West Coast Life Church pastor Ray Gene Wilson said. “Thousands baptized at Pirates Cove. God is moving in California.”
During the weekend, a large group of people gathered at Pensacola Beach in Florida for prayer, worship, and to accept Christ. Many individuals were also baptized in the ocean. This event was a celebration of the Jesus Movement, an evangelical Christian movement that originated in the late 1960s and early 1970s on the West Coast of the United States. The Jesus Revolution movie, which highlights the journey of renowned pastor and evangelist Greg Laurie’s conversion during this time, was released earlier this year.
In February, when the movie was released, there was a big Christian revival called the Asbury Christian Revival at Asbury University in Kentucky. Around 50,000 Christians participated in the revival by continuously praying and worshipping for several weeks. During last Sunday’s Baptize SoCal event, many participants also shared their spiritual experience on social media with their friends.
“It was such a blessing to witness so many people getting baptized for one but to be able to see happen the same place that the hippies did it 50 years ago for The Jesus People Movement was just surreal,” videographer Eddy Ferguson wrote.
“It was so incredible just seeing all of these people come together,” worship leader Daniel Mamora wrote.
“In fact, I was sitting on top of the cliff watching the baptisms and there’s a staircase in order to get down if you want to get baptized and literally, there was a whole line right there and then all of a sudden, the line just goes around into the parking lot, it wasn’t just people wanting to come in and witness but people wanting to get baptized, that blew me away!” he said.
