Putting those words together in a blog title is part of my bold sense of humor.  As an unofficial reformed Baptist who would not baptize infants, I am including these two together at the connecting point of church growth.

ReCAST Church has continued to grow.  It has grown in size as well as in depth.  Since August we have seen 16 baptisms.  Baptism at ReCAST Church is a way of saying I’m all in with Jesus and I want to show that to the community by following God in obedience.  In this sense, baptism is a decent measure of the spiritual vitality of a community. And, God is doing something amazing here in this church community.  The fact that so many have recently taken this step of faith, while ReCAST hasn’t been pushing it, is a very real way of seeing that God is doing something beyond us.  The church doesn’t get the credit for the number of baptisms.  But the church DOES get the blessings of seeing God move in the lives of people to take this awesome step of obedient faith.

The word ‘babies’ is in the blog title because this is also another avenue of significant growth at ReCAST Church.  There have been two ReCAST babies born THIS WEEK and two more will be here in the next couple weeks.  Babies are everywhere!  And while that might be a slight exaggeration, we do have between 100-120 kids in our ReCAST Kids program every Sunday morning.  And there are seven babies on the way (that we know of).

It is a privilege to pastor at a growing church.  I’ve always liked to say that numbers don’t matter.  People matter.  And so we only count the people.  Which makes numbers matter.  I don’t love the numbers at ReCAST . . . I love the people.

It is such a joy to see people take the very brave step of standing up in front of the congregation and testifying that Jesus Christ is their Savior and Lord.  And it is such a joy to hold NEW little people who start out in the nursery and advance in their understanding of Jesus as they grow.

ReCAST Church is a growing church.  And I am grateful for the baptisms and babies, even if we are a church that doesn’t combine those two together.