When Animoto frist came out, it was an intelligent and simple slideshow creator. You simply upload photos and music and it would create a randomly generated slideshow using amazing transitions that seem to just move with the music. Well, over the years they’ve made adjustments and you can also add video. So, you can turn photos and short video clips into an amazing presentation.

I use Animoto for every child dedication, for many of our baptisms, and promos for many of our events as well as for personal family slideshows and video clips. Below are several videos I’ve made so you can see for yourself.

The great part about Animoto is that it’s so inexpensive. For the dedications, I’ll pay an extra $5 to export the high rez video and it’s absolutely brilliant. Now you even have HD options, which I haven’t tried yet.

Bottom line. For a lot of your video stuff, you don’t need to spend hours learning how to use iMovie or other programs. You’ll save a lot of money… and a lot more time using Animoto to do what you need… and it will probably look better than anything you’ll put together yourself (unless you’re really good and have spent a lot of time learning the tools).

To check out and start using Animoto, click here!

A few weeks I wrote about our upcoming Baptism Celebration. That Baptism Celebration is happening this Saturday. That’s one of the reasons you’ve not seen a lot of posts on this blog recently. Wow, I’ve been learning a LOT. Between now and next week, I hope to share a lot of what we learned. I’ve had some moments of failure as well as some moments of true excitement. I’ll share it all. However, I wanted to share a sneak peak. Here’s a video interview of one of the kids being baptized. I’ll show this just before each child is baptized on Sunday. BAM!

I’m so excited!

Later that day, Brynn and her Dad had fun reliving the moment in their pool Although they were “playing,” there’s no doubt this little girl, or her dad truly “get it.”

Okay, last part. Brynn went to School on Monday and asked everyone she saw if she looked any different to them. She explained that she had been baptized. She’s putting into action the last thing I told her in the baptism class that once we are baptized, it is our turn to live out our part of the Great Commission… to tell everyone about Jesus. That’s simply what she’d doing now. I’m expecting great things from Brynn!

1. I didn’t baptize a single child
2. We baptized less kids at the all-church baptism since I’ve been at Gateway
3. I talked about 15 kids out of getting baptized yesterday

After reading my list, you might think I was crazy. Nope, it was all very intentional. You may have read me talk about our Gateway Baptisms before. It’s an incredible experience of people coming to faith and God convicting hearts and people getting baptized who were not originally planning to be baptized. This works great for teenagers and adults, but can be tricky for kids. Over the years, many kids come to get baptized. They see the commotion and want to participate. Other kids are prompted by their parents to be baptized. Regardless of how it happens, most of these kids don’t understand why they need to be baptized and my greatest pet peeve is to sit down and try to cram in a baptism counseling session in five minutes. So, we had a plan. So let me explain my list.

I didn’t baptize a single child
Probably my favorite thing about being a pastor is leading people to faith and baptizing them. It’s such a joy. However, about 3-4 years ago I had a wake-up call. I realized that the absolute best person to baptize a child is the child’s parent. My role was to walk with parents, help them lead their child to faith and celebrate as they baptize their child. That’s what happened yesterday. About 8-9 kids were baptized yesterday, almost every one was baptized by a mom or dad. Woo Hoo!

We baptized less kids at the all-church baptism since I’ve been at Gateway
Like I said, only about 8-9 kids were baptized yesterday. Normally we would have 3-4 times that many. Why so few? Well, on May 21, we are hosting our very first Baptism Celebration. It’s a family-driving baptism service just for kids. We’re treating it like Child Dedication, where family and friends gather for worship and celebrating kids being baptized. We’ll interview kids telling their story, explaining why they’ve decided to follow Christ and why they’re getting baptized. It’s going to be AWESOME. So, in our baptism class last week, we encouraged families to bypass yesterday’s baptism and make plans to join us on May 21. Most did. Woo Hoo!

I talked about 15 kids out of getting baptized yesterday
I’ve said it before. I hate last minute counseling sessions. I don’t like to rush baptism. In the past 3 years, I’ve not really had anything to point parents to. I’d encourage them to attend our next baptism class which was a month or two later with another baptism following that. That’s not very motivating. However, we have two more baptism classes scheduled in two weeks. We have the Baptism Celebration scheduled for May 21. As we described the Celebration to parents and kids who came up to be baptized yesterday, every one lit up with excitement. Every one said they’d come to the baptism class in a few weeks. Every one said they wanted to be a part of the Celebration. Woo Hoo!

Yesterday was a great day! We had some incredible baptism stories (one I’ll share tomorrow). But I’m most excited about what is to come. Expect to get an information dump as we plan and pull off this Celebration service.

Enjoy the video!

Last week we baptized close to 30 kids after one of our services. It was a beautiful time.

One of my favorite parts about this baptism were the number of parents being baptized because their kids were taking this step. Several parents decided to be baptized as a family because their child had been “bugging” them about it.

I always encourage parents to baptize their children. After saying that at the last baptism class, one of the parents asked if it was okay if they baptized their child even if they haven’t been baptized. I asked them why, they hadn’t been baptized. No good reason. So, on baptism day, I had the honor of baptizing both mom and dad before they turned around and baptized their daughter. Simply beautiful!

Enjoy the video montage of the baptism day.

There are so many great stories from yesterday that I got to witness.

I had one family that didn’t hear about the baptism class in time. A dad called me over the weekend to find out what they needed to do. Both of his kids, a 12 and 14 year old filled out the adult baptism packet and they really wanted to get baptized becasue their mom was coming up from Corpus Christi. I arranged to meet them during one of the services and walk through what it means to have a relationship with God and be baptized. I met with the whole family for close to 45 minutes and we had a great conversation. Because we met during the service, the 14 year old was insistent that they get baptized after the service but then stay for the 12:30 service. She really wanted her mom to experience Gateway. It was an honor to baptize these kids who truly had made Jesus their Lord; however, something peculiar happened. After the 12:30 service, I saw them at the pool again. I joked, “you back for more already?” In some way, the mom visiting from Corpus Christi was visibly touched by the service and felt prompted to be baptized as well. I don’t know her spiritual condition other than the fact that she does go to church and that she did sit through the discussion I had with her kids. It was obvious that something significant was happening in her life. What a beautiful thing for her kids to witness!

I met another guy right after one of the services. He was the first in line to be baptized. I asked him what prompted him to be baptized today. He said that he’d been attending Gateway for over a year, but didn’t come in today. He was watching the service online (woo who web campus) and felt like he was supposed to be baptized. So, he jumped in his car and drove up to the church to take this next step in his faith.

I could go on an on telling you other stories I heard or things that I saw, but I’ll spare you the details. If you’re having one of those days and want to read more, feel free to click here and here. Great stories from those who pre-registered for the baptism.

However, my favorite part is seeing others empowered to baptize. I love nothing more than seeing moms and dads in the pool baptizing their children. I saw husbands baptizing their wives and wives baptizing their husbands. It was very exciting to see my wife baptize her friend that she’s been walking with relationally and spiritually this year and had the distinct pleasure of leading her to Christ. She did great! We also have an 19 year-old intern serving in our Student Ministry. He’s overseeing a lot of the programming and teaching in Middle School and this kid is FIRED UP! He’s been in church his whole life and he’s been one of the lead teachers for five year-olds for many years. He’s had a significant impact on so many of these little kids. One of the kids being baptized this Sunday had been in his class all this year and requested him. Justin (the intern) was so excited. Probably one of my favorite parts of the baptism yesterday was seeing how excited Justin was to baptize a child he’d had so much influence over and to know that this is only the first of hundreds if not thousands of people Justin will baptize.

Enjoy some of the photos below.