Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. Thanks for joining us today on the WallBuilders Show. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton with a really cool show for you. To kick things off this week, we're actually going to be jumping onto a story that Tim brought up in Good News Friday last week, all these baptisms across the country. It's just incredible the harvest that's happening right now And later in the program, we got Mark Francie with us. He's the guy that kind of helped kick this thing off and start organizing it. And having these special days and working with churches of all denominations. So it's going to be kind of cool to chat with him and find out what's coming up later in the year as well, but guys this has been part of our Goodies Friday programs last couple of weeks just talking about the. Conversions talking about the baptisms of college campuses now out in California. I mean all of this is just really exciting 

David Barton [00:00:51] And why do baptisms even matter? Why is this a news story? Well, it's a news story. Because that's the one thing that everybody in Christianity can agree on. Is that you need to be baptized when you receive jesus And so whether it's Catholics or Protestants, whether it is. Mainstream denominations or not. I don't know of any Christian group that doesn't believe baptism is important. So from that standpoint, I think we've got at least one night we can kind of agree on. 

Tim Barton [00:01:15] Well it should be that simple, I would point out. That you know if we want some controversy we can say hey the thief on the cross was never baptized and he got to heaven But that's probably the exception we're going to point to because when Jesus told the disciples to go into all the world. And make disciples, he said, baptize him in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And so baptism is something that has been a foundational component. Of Christianity since Jesus was here, and by the way, also worth noting that baptism was a foundational part of Judaism. The reason that on the day of Pentecost they were able to see thousands that were baptized and added to the number is because there were the ritual cleansing pools, the baptismal pools. That was a different kind of baptism. Right? But they were familiar with baptism even in the Jewish culture because It was one of the things that the... I guess John the Baptist first was baptizing people and that didn't seem totally far-fetched or crazy and then Jesus comes along but even when you get the Apostle Paul in Acts and he's talking about that people need to be baptized. And they said, we've been baptized in it. Well, whose baptism are you baptized in? The fact that they're having conversations about different kinds of baptism, this this was not something that was even controversial. In Judaism, and certainly has been a foundational component of our understanding, one of the principles of doctrines of Christianity that after you accept Jesus as your savior, The next logical, practical step that pretty much everybody in Christianity agrees on, the next step is baptism because that's what Jesus and disciples do. Go make disciples and do baptise them. 

David Barton [00:02:50] And so a good thing about that is when you're seeing more baptisms. That should indicate you're seeing more people come to Christ and embrace the Biblical, Judeo-Christian faith, the Biblical faith. And so with this about baptisms and why this is a news story is we could be messing around here with what can become a genuine revival at least a starting in that direction now whether it turns into a real awakening or not, a reformation, that's yet to be seen. But I was looking at some of the headlines just going through here just a few minutes ago actually. Working on a different project for a something I'm doing this coming weekend. And I was saying that, for example, at the University of Kentucky, they had 10,000 kids come to the University of Kentucky to a religious revival meeting. And 2,000 of them got baptized at that revival meeting. I see here at the University of Arkansas, 10,000 kids showing up to a revival meeting. University of Arkansas, same kind of thing. I'm just looking at all these college campuses where it's in. You know, we're at a five digit numbers of these kids coming to revival meetings, knowing what they're coming to. And then having. Four digit numbers get baptized with these things. I mean, I don't... Maybe you guys recall, I don't remember that in the last 20 years in any way, shape, fashion or form. Especially being across the country the way it is now. And I'm looking at really dozens of stories here. On secular college campuses, even religious or quasi-religious like Baylor. I mean, this is happening all over the nation, which really is a good sign. 

Tim Barton [00:04:21] Well, it's ironic to we're saying Baylor's quasi-religious because it was founded as a Christian university but but as were so many universities like in Fort Worth there's Texas Christian University they've actually advocated to just be known as TCU because they don't want to be known as a Christian university. So just because there are universities that were founded that way, and we can get it back into the Harvard and the Princeton and the Yales and the early universities where. Faith was the. The driving factor for the foundation, Dad, to your point. One of the cool things, I would say really, it's the last year and a half that I would feel confident saying that on Good News Friday, we've been having stories of baptisms of revivals of coaches, because I can remember maybe, maybe two seasons ago and the NCAA basketball conversation some of these coaches that were were saying things and challenging and we can go back further where you add your Dabo Sweeney's and we can go back and mention some of the names of people that were outspoken for their faith But we didn't see it as prevalent as we have seen it now, and then dad, to your point, the fact that... Over the last couple of months, really over the last year. On these college campuses, it's it's become far more normal for us in our stack of Good News Friday every Friday to see one of these stories of yet another major university where there are athletes from often the biggest sports team at the university who are getting up front in front of the students sharing their faith they're having times of worship that they're having altar call moments And then they're having baptisms on campus of these major universities. There's no doubt. We've talked about it for years there's no doubt that God is doing something. There is a stirring happening our nation. We think we are in the midst of another Great awakening reformation kind of movement in America But this is something that even last Friday we talked about. The baptism's happening out. In California and I think it was just Friday. And Rick, I said, Hey, we probably ought to see if we can get, get somebody on and talk about this. And I was thinking in the next week or two, but we had a very quick response to email and we're able to get this scheduled. So I'm very excited to hear some firsthand details about what's been going on. And even the call, the encouragement, the challenge to other churches and Christians around the nation to be part of this movement where we can unite together to bring people to know Jesus and then encourage them in the next practical step of baptism. 

Rick Green [00:06:43] Mark Francey pastor from California our special guest when we return we're going to be talking about What you can look forward to in some of these future dates as these baptisms continue. Across the country. Stay with us, folks. You're listening to The WallBuilder Show. 

Rick Green [00:07:59] Welcome back to the WallBuilder show. Thanks for staying with us. Mark Francey is with us, you've seen the headlines. Thousands of baptisms in California, just incredible. What the Lord is doing. Pastor Mark, God bless you, man. Thanks for coming on. 

Pastor Mark Francey [00:08:10] Oh, I am honored to be with you. We are big wall builder fans. 

Rick Green [00:08:13] Well, thank you very much and of course, Oceans. You guys are have been Out on the front lines and and already, you know experiencing revival before a lot of the country But this is incredible what you guys did with this invented And what was like 7,000 baptisms? 

Pastor Mark Francey [00:08:30] Yeah it's it's pretty  mind-boggling but yeah it was start at 11 a.m and we baptize people up until about 8:35 8:40 p.m.. So it was a steady flow, I mean for probably five of those hours, almost 100 to 120 lines of people getting baptized. One right after the other and it just didn't didn't you know go away kept going all day long So it was quite the fine wonder It felt like we were living in the pages of Acts chapter 2 or 3. 

Rick Green [00:09:00] Wow. Oh man. Incredible. No, my pastor was talking about it on Sunday morning, I was seeing it all over social media. David and Tim said, may we? We got to get them on and talk about it walk us back kind of back us up on. You know, how this kind of thing ends up happening, right? I mean, as we see crusades and. And the Billy Graham, you know, stuff and. You know, a lot of planning has to go into that and you have to do a lot you know, getting ready and, and, and promoting and, You know, ministering for months and months ahead of time. Well, how did this all come about? 

Pastor Mark Francey [00:09:31] Well, it's been, I guess, the succession of incremental growth kind of every year three years ago I had a. Spending some time with Jesus and my devotional time and I was reading a book on Spiritual awakenings by Mario Morillo He shared a story in one of the books about the largest water baptism in American history. Two aspects is one, it was in California, which I would have thought surely was in Texas or the Bible Belt. But it was in California and the second anomaly was it was 1990, which I would have thought maybe the Jesus Revolution Window but 1990 but it was after the great great glory. He had an event a crusade in thousands of people went to Pirate's Cove. And they said that day, you know, LA Times did an article on it, still on the internet today, but a couple thousand people got baptized at Pirates Cove. And so I read that article, and I would just say it wasn't a dream. I was awake, I was conscious, but it was a vision. And I saw people that I knew in our church that were at Pirate's Cove. It was packed full of thousands of people. And I heard that inner voice that, you know, we're all familiar with, with the Holy Spirit saying, Mark, I want you to do it again. I want you to organize. My body coming together and i want you to help fund it and. I don't want you to put your name or your church's name on any of it. And I want you to bring my people together around one of the things all of my kids get along and agree on, which is water baptism. So he began to give me this kind of download and basically I felt like he was, you know, kind of giving me this kind of thought by thought process of if I can do it in Southern California, I can do it all of California. And if I could do this in California, in America. And if it can happen in America, there's not a nation in the world that couldn't experience this. So we, it kind of started then, this was two years ago, we launched Pentecost Sunday, which was the day he told me he wanted to really make water baptism the day that the Christian world celebrates water baptism. So Pentecast Sunday, 2023, we went to Pirate's Cove. We had about 170 churches represented, 180 churches represented. We baptized 4,166 people that day, and it was about six hour baptism. We did a live recording. TBN came and did kind of a live documentary that day. 

Rick Green [00:11:57] Now, hey, Mark, say again, you said you had a hundred, how many churches? 

Pastor Mark Francey [00:12:01] Over a hundred and seventy-five churches that came that day. 

Rick Green [00:12:05] That's incredible gather in all denominations. I'm guessing 

Pastor Mark Francey [00:12:08] Yeah, I mean, that's the beautiful thing about water baptism. You know, it's big enough for all of us to agree on it. And we had some of the greatest Baptist churches in the state. Evangelical churches, Pentecostal churches, and kind of everyone in between that showed up. And started this great unity amongst Southern California's churches. And so that we launched and we couldn't go back the next year. We had about 12,000 people show up throughout the day at Pirates Cove. And if you've been there before, it's not very big. So we knew we had to go to a larger beach. So 2024, we went to Huntington Beach. We got a massive stage set up. They said the fire marshal said we had somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 people show up last year and we baptized just over 6,000 people at the beach and we had 300 local churches. In every single county of California that hosted it in their churches Sunday morning. It was beautiful, Rick, because. You know, we had video footage from all the churches in the morning, posting baptisms, and 6,000 people got baptized in those three thousand churches that morning. 

Rick Green [00:13:16] Three hundred six thousand baptism three hundred three hundred churches, right? 

Pastor Mark Francey [00:13:19] Yeah, there were 300 churches, and in those 300 churches we had just over 6,000 get baptized in the church. 

Rick Green [00:13:26] So they were simultaneously having their own baptism services, everybody across the state. 

Pastor Mark Francey [00:13:31] It's the whole state, Sunday morning, hosted baptisms together. And what we were able to do was take that footage because the event on Sunday didn't start till Sunday after church. We were able to take all of the footage from that morning in churches and put it on these giant screens as we were worshiping Jesus on the beach. And we baptized another 6,000 at the beach, those 12,000 people total between the live event and the local church expression and the entire state in every county of California last year. 

Rick Green [00:13:59] That's beautiful. 

Pastor Mark Francey [00:14:00] One of the biggest things we learned, though, was, you know, we had all this great publicity, you know CNN, Fox News, LA Times came out, did a big article on it, and it was beautiful. But the problem was, is there was nothing right after it to kind of connect people to other than, you know we did a huge campaign to get people connected to local churches. That's been the heart of this since we started. And so this year we thought you know what let's do the big event about a month before at Huntington beach. And so with all the publicity lands, we can use that to get people in the local churches all over America to get baptized. And so that's what we did. And so we just did the event last Saturday, 7,752 people was the final count of the day that got baptized. We had over, I think we had over 500 churches that showed up at the beach. I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood, like almost 500, like 400 and some change. Show up to the beach unified with us But now we're gearing up for Pentecost Sunday, June 8th. We have every single state represented, hundreds of churches in some of the states represented. And our goal is to get thousands of churches across America working together, collaborating on what will be the largest synchronized day of baptism, maybe in US history for sure, maybe world history. 

Rick Green [00:15:16] Remark it's just remarkable i mean i'm a I'm not speechless very often, man. I mean, this is a... This is remarkable and so encouraging and And of course the coordination and all that's amazing and it makes it even that much more poetic. But bro, you gotta speak to just the fact that this many people are coming to the Lord and rededicating or whatever but just that there's this desire for communion with the Lord and to obey his command to be baptized I mean, what a special time for our nation and for the world, speak of that part, like what you've been seeing. In California and the desire... Just a hunger for righteousness. 

Pastor Mark Francey [00:15:56] Yeah, I think that darkness and the devil always overplays his hand, and I think that over the last five years, specifically in California. I think there was just this, you know, this sense that, man, can it get any worse? And I know a lot of people left California. You know, just so tired of the political, you know, moral rot, decay, the school system. And I think there was such a overabundance of people calling darkness good and light bad that I think it caused almost this reverse tide in our state. That goes, you know what, it's now almost. To be a standout person, it's to be righteous. You know, you wanna be. A rebel in the sixties it's drug sex and rock and roll and now it's. It's righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit is kind of what it looks like to. To be a standout in different world era. And so. 

Rick Green [00:16:46] It's like rebels with a cause, right? 

Pastor Mark Francey [00:16:48] We are. It's like this, you know, righteous rebellion, so to speak. like, no, we want to stand for what's right. We're tired of what's wrong and so I think that you know historically and certainly David Barton you guys are the experts on historical revivals but they never come out of times of peace and prosperity. It's always on the heels of a window of turbulence in society. And I think that we've undergone one of the greatest shakings nationally, maybe in the last 250 years of our great nation. And I that wouldn't it be like God to use the Nazareth of the world, like California, that everyone has written off to write a story of national revival and use the place that everyone gave up on to kind of like the match of another great awakening in this great nation. 

Rick Green [00:17:34] Amen, brother. Amen I mean that is you nailed it that's exactly what what what I'm seeing across the country is as we travel out there and I think it's for exactly the reasons you're You're talking about and so we've got a great harvest before us and the way that you guys have captured this moment and grown it. I mean, it's like a force multiplying effect and and the beauty that is for the culture itself to see that happening. And how many other churches are going to want to be involved and how you're bringing people together in the body of Christ from all these different denominations. It's incredible. How can people that might be listening participate with you like what's the best do they seem to go to your church website what were you sending people if they want to Be a part of this. 

Pastor Mark Francey [00:18:15] Yeah, no, our church and we have a great local church here in California and Irvine, California and Orange County. But no, this is all completely separate from that. So they just go to baptizeamerica.com. And it literally has all the information whether they want to get baptized they say hey i want to get baptized i missed the bus maybe in california but i live in Rhode Island or I live in Maine or Hawaii, if you want to get baptized, you can go there to sign up at baptizeamerica.com or I'm going to guess there's a lot of maybe people that already are in church, maybe a pastor, leader in church or deacon, whatever it might be. And you want your church to be a part of this historic day. Talk to your pastor if you're not the leader and just say, hey, we should be a part of it. You know, we're going to use all of these, I mean, we have so much publicity going out right now across America that literally millions of people will be signing up to water baptized, and we want to send them to the local church. I mean, I think the reason why God is blessing it is it's kind of fulfilling two of His greatest desires is the prayer of John 17. Jesus prays, Lord, make my followers one as we are one. And so, I think God always historically blesses unity. And I think, the second part of it is you know, the Great Commission, Matthew 28, going to all the world, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them. So I think there's something in the unity of baptism. And I think the fastest way to evangelize the city is to plant a healthy local church. And the fastest to make a disciple is to get someone connected to a healthy, local church and so that's our mission is to get as many people across our great nation in the local churches. And so go to baptizeamerica.com to sign up to get baptized. You can find a church in your state, hopefully your city, to get baptized in. And if you're a church leader and you want to sign your church up, go there. Very easy to do. It takes about two minutes to sign you church up. And our goal is to have thousands of churches across every single state. We've actually already inspired other nations. They've already launched Baptize Canada. They're launching baptized Sweden. I have a call today with Brazil's leaders of their church to launch baptized Brazil But we do believe that what started in California could go to the ends of the earth here pretty quick. 

Rick Green [00:20:21] Incredible Incredible. All right, baptizeamerica.com And I guess you can also go to just baptize.org directly, looks like it's going in the same spot. 

Pastor Mark Francey [00:20:30] Yep. 

Rick Green [00:20:30] All right. Cool. Cool, man. Let's get that. Hey, everybody out there. You're this listening. There's an action item for you right here on today's program. Take that website, give it to your pastor, pastors that are listening. What a great opportunity to come together with the body of Christ. For across the nation Mark, God bless you man I'm just thankful that that you listen to the holy spirit when whenever you were given that little urge to do this, what a cool, cool harvest that we're seeing right now. Appreciate your brother. 

Pastor Mark Francey [00:20:53] Thank you Rick. An honor to be with you guys. God bless you. Have a great day. 

Rick Green [00:20:55] You as well, stay with us folks, we'll be right back with David and Tim Barton. 

Rick Green [00:22:05] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us. That was Pastor Mark Francey. What an exciting, exciting time and. Baptize.org again is the quickest of those couple of websites that we gave out. To go see those dates and to sign up or to even host at your church, maybe send it to your pastor. David and Tim, you guys were talking at the beginning of the program about What a great indicator this is and I don't know that we've seen any data on this from Barna or anybody else. But I would think that taking the baptism step... Greatly increases the likelihood that they're gonna actually be a biblical Christian actually be discipled because they're starting to obey those commands at that point so it's more than just a you know, a one night experience or, or, you know a big rally type situation they're committing publicly. To serve Christ. But that seems like it you know that it you what you were saying earlier david spot on that that this could mean a real but your revival that leads to reformation 

David Barton [00:22:54] Yeah, and that was a point I was thinking about earlier as. It takes some courage to be able to publicly get yourself baptized. Especially at a secular university like University of Arkansas or Kentucky or the other ones we mentioned and so many others we didn't mention. It takes some courage to do that. And if you have that kind of courage starting out. Then you're gonna be more committed to your faith. You're not really kind of scared and gonna step away and kind of hide your faith and. Not really want to get attacked or offended or anything else. This is good, and as Mark pointed out. This is one doctrine that nearly every denomination of Christians can agree on. You know, Tim did have an exception to the rule, but since Jesus made the rule I think he can make the exception. So if you happen to be on the cross with a thief and he... Gets saved there at that point in time great. But outside of that, everybody else, we got a pretty clear mandate. And I think this is a wonderful way for the church to step up and start recognizing what's going on in the culture and hopefully everybody I love what he said let's just have a baptism Sunday let's do this on a specific day across the nation. As a united voice and we got the website and we've got all the stuff and they've got all the materials there. This is so easy to do. And it's a good way also to reach out to people who maybe have never been baptized. If they'll get baptized, that is a step of obedience and courage. That I think will help move them down the path of discipleship in a much stronger direction. Which we need Biblical Christians right now. We need Christians with courage, and this is one way to get there. 

Tim Barton [00:24:19] Well, and Rick, to your point about maybe even checking with Barna to see, you know what, statistically, what data can we point to? Is there data that shows if they take this step, they're more likely to take the next step? And one of the things I would feel confident saying is, when we look at Christians that are in the category of the biblical worldview, what does he call them? Dad, what's the title he uses? 

Rick Green [00:24:43] The Sage Cons. 

Tim Barton [00:24:44] Sage Cons, thank you. Spiritually active, governance engaged. 

Rick Green [00:24:46] I can't remember what it stands for, but yeah, yeah. 

Tim Barton [00:24:49] Yeah, ironically, I could kind of remember what it stood for, and I didn't remember the acronym. I should have just sounded it out and it would have come to me, but... When we look at people that are walking out their biblical worldview, I doubt you're going to find really any of them that were not baptized. So I don't know that baptism always leads to having a biblical worldview. But I do think there's probably some level of influence on that. And then I even love that he pointed out. Part of his research and study that led him to this was finding out in 1990, under Greg Laurie, there was this massive, the largest one in the U.S at that point was 1990, and as he pointed out, he thought maybe this would be like in a Bible Belt somewhere. No, this was in California, although back in 1990... California certainly had not gone as far left as they have today, nonetheless. The fact that he wanted to bring it back and it's happening in California and really it's happening all over the nation. But this is just continued affirmation that we are seeing God on the move all over this nation. It, this is not a Good News Friday program, although it was inspired by Good News, Friday program. But it really is a reason we should be so encouraged and optimistic. And I do remember talking about this on Good News Friday last week. That the very first woman baptized in this last one where they had over 7,000 people baptized, she was 71 years old, had been saved for 40 something years, never been baptized. And we encourage at that point, don't think that you have gone too long, that you, have missed your chance to be baptized. No, this is something as people of faith. It's an outward expression of the inward change of what God has done that we are are dead to the old man, dead to sin, we're raised to new life in Christ. This is a great thing if you've never been baptized, find that date. Go be baptized. Follow that commission from Jesus. 

Rick Green [00:26:33] Baptize.org is the best way to find out where they're connecting on this and maybe get your church involved as well Really appreciate pastor Mark Francey for joining us today Thank you for listening to the WallBuilders Show.