92 baptisms in Bournemouth? You’d better believe it!

More than 1,000 people from five different churches gathered on Bournemouth beach last weekend. As 92 people came forward to be baptised, local church leader Chris Sinkinson says that it’s another example of the changing spiritual atmosphere in Britain

Something special happened in Bournemouth last weekend. Baptisms are always a time of celebration but when five churches came together to share a baptism service on the beach the response was extraordinary. Is there really a “quiet revival” taking place? This may be another piece of positive evidence.

It had been months in the planning, and I was out in the water at 7:30am to test the temperature. The sun was shining, the long sandy beach was clean and the water remarkably warm. The churches that joined together ranged from the more traditional evangelical to lively charismatic, but all share a common commitment to the good news of Jesus Christ.

Prior to the Sunday morning, 70 people had asked to be baptised. We created a website to host their stories, knowing that we’d only have time for a few spoken testimonies of lives changed on the day. One of our friends had only become a Christian a couple of weeks previously on a housing estate where we are involved in a local outreach.