By Tony Martin
Associate Editor
In an extraordinary movement of the Holy Spirit, Crossgates Church, Brandon, baptized 104 Believers Feb. 19 during a worship service that lasted five hours.
David Jett has been senior pastor at Crossgates Church for 15 years. Co-pastor Kyle Reno began ministry at the church in October of 2022 and will be transitioning to the senior pastor role in January of 2024.
“I’m going to pass the baton along to him,” said Jett, “and I’ll stay on as teaching pastor.”
This year, then, is to be the year that “we determine what we need to do together,” Jett said, and that provided the context of what happened on Feb. 19.
“I really believe the Lord brought me here and has used me to prepare the church,” said Jett. “I believe revival is a surrender that God’s people make. For 15 years I’ve taught and preached God’s Word. It was just a preparation for what was to come.
“In January, we felt God was positioning us to something He wanted to do here,” Jett continued. “We did 21 days of prayer and fasting. It was different this time. We’ve done it before, just about every year, for a long time. This one had an expectation that was there.”
Reno described a ministry he began called Pray One. “In our staff culture, in our spiritual rhythm, we asked the ministerial staff to devote one hour every work day to pray — pray over their area of ministry, the church, and the community. The church was ready to go on that 21 days of fasting and praying. In an unusual way, the church went all in.”
On Feb. 5, Jett began a sermon series from the Gospel of Luke on when people need Jesus. “In our worship center, we made a Cross with little ‘slits’ to hold cards. We gave people a card on the fourth, and on one side it said, ‘Far from God people.’
“I challenged them to pray and ask God to put into their minds the names of people who were far from God — people who don’t yet know Christ, or maybe people who once went to church and drifted away.”
During the Feb. 5 worship services, people were encouraged to lay their cards on the altar. Jett told the congregation that the staff would be praying for those people every week through Easter.
“I was sitting next to my wife and his wife during the first service,” Reno said. “Our baptistery is in the balcony area. About that time, the baptistery water started stirring. You could audibly hear it. Immediately in my spirit I believed that God wanted us to see the waters churned.”
Reno said he walked over to Jett and told him, “I believe the Lord wants us to believe that we’ll see people move from being ‘far from God’ to people walking through the water and being baptized.”
Jett encouraged Reno to pray that way. When Reno shared that in both worship services, everyone in the congregation stood, stretched their hands out, and prayed toward the baptistery.
Reno was scheduled to preach on Feb. 19. Prior to that, he shared with Jett what he was learning. “It was about Peter being called by Jesus,” Jett said. “Peter left everything and followed Jesus. That was immediate obedience. Several in our church have a call to ministry on their lives, so it’s a call to surrender everything. To others, it’s a call to be baptized — now.”
Crossgates’ Discipleship Pastor Brad Randall was dispatched to the local Walmart to purchase every pair of black shorts in the store for those who would be baptized that day. The church also purchased as many towels as they could. Special t-shirts were handed out.
“Our whole team jumped in to be ready,” he said. Reno gave an open invitation at the end of the first worship service, and Jett stepped forward to encourage people not to miss the opportunity.
A woman named Holly came forward at the first worship service and gave her testimony. A steady stream of people followed, and 18 were baptized during that service.
The second worship service began at 10:30 a.m. There were five people who hadn’t been baptized in the first service who were baptized then. “We had a song, Kyle preached an abbreviated message, and we gave the same call,” said Jett.
A long line began to form and church staff stepped in hear their testimonies. “The big thing was that people kept talking about total surrender,” Jett said. “The other thing that was interesting was probably 80% of the people coming forward were weeping, deeply moved by what God was doing in their hearts.
“It’s when God comes to church,” Jett said, smiling. “Of course He’s omnipresent, but sometimes He wants to come in a more experiential kind of way. I tell our church, ‘God’s on the move.’ I just don’t want to miss it.”
