Last night was another full night at Wednesday Night group. We had close to 100 come to sing and celebrate all that God is doing and listen to his word.

After the second worship set, we had the baptismal set up to baptize two faithful Wednesday Nighters. It was an awesome celebration of God making new life in Jesus.

What I didn’t know about was when I called for spontaneous baptisms that I would get 10 MORE students walk up and say they want to live for Jesus the rest of their lives. Students were baptizing one another, leaders were praying over kids, and most of us were hugging and in tears of joy. It was powerful, to say the least!

Earlier that day, when I was praying for the students, I asked God to bring 3 more in addition to the two we were set to baptize last night. Later, while I was busy setting up, I had our faithful volunteer staff pray for a total of 5 baptisms that night, that God would prepare the students’ hearts for the beginning of change.

Daniel getting baptized!

Needless to say, God multiplied our prayers. After the night was over, one of our leaders, Mike, quoted the scripture to me saying, “Chris, he is able to do far more abundantly that we could ever think or ask.”

It’s essential in our ministry efforts to focus less on skill, presentation, and excellence, and more on begging the Holy Spirit of God to move as we faithfully and clearly share the gospel. Less skill/cool/presentation and more Holy Spirit. I have no doubt that these kids were baptized because we prayed. James puts it extremely simply, “You do not have because you do not ask.”

There are only a couple of consistent things we have been doing in the high school ministry at Willamette: faithfully preaching the gospel, loving the kids well, and constantly begging God to move.

In our lives and ministry, let’s continue to ask God to multiply our prayers.