March 11, 2010 – Panama City, Panama…[Libna Stevens/IAD]
The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Inter-America will conclude its quinquennium with thousands of baptisms on Saturday, Mar. 13, in Panama City, Panama. The ceremony, called Pentecost and More, will be broadcast live via satellite.
The event will also mark the end of the church’s division-wide Festival of the Laity, which is happening this week in Panama City.
“Pentecost and More has created an evangelistic momentum in this division during this quinquennium, enabling us to realize a baptismal target unparalleled in our history,” says Pastor Balvin Braham, Ministerial Association associate director and organizer of the event. More than one million baptisms took place in the Inter-American Division (IAD) during the last five years — a record for the IAD.
Braham says he has also seen a “decrease in attrition of members from the faith.”
“We believe it is necessary to affirm the efforts of the pastors and laity across the Division territory and to provide additional motivation and inspiration towards the fulfillment of the mission,” says Braham.
During the live program, church presidents from throughout the 17 regions of Inter-America will make baptismal declarations on stage. Some 100 new believers will be baptized on site during the live event and some 3,000 more will be baptized during the same day throughout Central America, and more in other regions as well.
For over three years now, Pentecost and More has represented the culmination of joint evangelistic efforts by pastors and church members throughout Inter-America.
In 2007, the program was first held in the Dominican Republic. It drew millions of satellite viewers and accounted for more than 48,500 baptisms in a single day, bringing the official IAD church membership to three million. In 2008, the division-wide program was held live from Jamaica, during which 50,000 were baptized.
For this year’s evangelistic efforts, Pastor Braham says thousands will hold baptismal ceremonies during the event, while other church regions will perform baptisms on a later date.
The two-and-a-half live event will be broadcast live Mar. 13, at 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, from Panama City, Panama, through:
Hope Channel http://www.hopetv.org/
Esperanza TV http://www.esperanzatv.org/
3ABN and 3ABN Latino http://www.3abn.rg/
Red ADvenir http://www.redadvenir.org/
