The Grace Brethren church in North Lauderdale, Florida, Grace Community Church (John Nelson, pastor), experienced an exciting and spiritually uplifting Easter sunrise and ocean baptism service this past weekend.
Pastor Nelson says, “In spite of being one of the coldest Easter mornings in quite awhile in South Florida (temps in the mid 50’s – don’t laugh – that’s cold for us South Floridians!) we celebrated with almost 70 people from all over the USA (Florida, Michigan, Virginia, California).”
The service began at 6:45 AM with prayer, Scripture reading from several men of the church, the singing of several songs, and a gospel message and invitation given by pastor John Nelson.
Nelson said, “The sun rose at 7:05 AM reminding us of how awesome God is. It was beautiful!”
He further reported, “The service concluded with two of our folks being baptized in the Atlantic Ocean (water temp about 76 degrees which was nice!). Dean Homan who recently moved down from one of our churches in Maryland was baptized (see photo) along with Merlande Sanchez, a lady from Haiti by way of the Bahamas.
“The entire group remained throughout the baptism and applauded after Dean and Merlande were baptized. It was a moving experience, especially when most were not from our church!
“At our Easter Celebration at 10:00 AM we enjoyed awesome music, several compelling videos and our largest attendance of 2007 thus far (71)!,” Pastor Nelson concluded.