Redemption stories lead to baptisms witnessed by tourists at lakeside worship service

A Michigan church keeps seeing God transform youth and young adults, including 10 who were once far from God but have been recently baptized.

Rob Nash, a pastor at Sawyer Highlands and Converge Community Church, said the churches baptized 10 people at an August service beside Lake Michigan.

One hundred fifty believers gathered at Warren Dunes State Park on August 6, where the 10 were baptized. Several vacationers, tourists and locals were among the witnesses.

“It’s an opportunity to publicly testify about what Christ has done in people’s lives,” Nash said.

Kerstin, one of the people baptized in August, has seen God turn her life around. In a YouTube testimony, she told the church how drinking and driving led to jail time a few years ago. She also fractured one of her vertebrae in a 2020 accident as part of her life’s dark path.

But a family at church connected with her, helping her seek God’s forgiveness and connect with the Lord.

“He opened a love in my heart that I had never felt before,” she said. “Throughout the last two-and-a-half years, Christ has changed so much in my life for the better that I do not recognize the person I was before (I knew) him.”

The county where the two churches exist has 156,000 people, Nash said. Estimates show that as many as 80,000 aren’t connected to Christ’s church.

“There’s a huge amount of people we could impact,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of work we can do.”

God’s power has transformed Trystan, who moved to Michigan to take a new job and found the church. He told the congregation how Christ started acting in his life at one of his lowest points.

Someone gave him a Bible years ago in school. But he told the church that he’d ignored the gift for years. He moved to three states and suffered hardship after hardship, not even realizing he still had the Bible.

But one day, he started reading it and a thirst for God’s word and love appeared.

“Jesus worked tirelessly from that point on,” Trystan said. “He gave me grace, mercy and love despite all I’ve done. He has empowered a desire in me to follow him.”

Christ can do the same for the tens of thousands who aren’t walking with Jesus yet. For all those people who could experience the grace and truth that changed Trystan and Kerstin’s life, Nash said the church is ready even as colder weather is on the way.

“God’s not done,” Nash said. “Even with the cold, we can do stuff with hot tubs and portable baptismals. If someone wants to get baptized next week or two weeks from now, we’ll be ready.”