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    Mass baptisms as festivals are drawing more people to Christ
    • May 3, 2026

    Inspired by a nudge from God, an Irvine pastor who heads a non-denominational, spirit-filled Christian church said he wants to make Pentecost Sunday water baptisms more intentional and as significant to Christians as Christmas and Easter.

    To do this, Pastor Mark Francey, founder of Oceans Church, said he’s getting the word out to a generation he sees as part of a sort of Jesus resurgence that’s emerged over the past few years.

    • Dozens of baptism volunteers help baptize participants in the water...

      Dozens of baptism volunteers help baptize participants in the water just off the shore at Pirate’s Cove Beach in Corona del Mar during a mass Baptism event, hosted by Baptize California, on Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Jeff Antenore, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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    Dozens of baptism volunteers help baptize participants in the water just off the shore at Pirate’s Cove Beach in Corona del Mar during a mass Baptism event, hosted by Baptize California, on Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Photo by Jeff Antenore, Orange County Register/SCNG)

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    In 2019, research suggested that Gen X could have been the “least churched population generation in history,” said Francey, who added in recent years he’s seen more people “hungry for God.”

    “Five years ago until now, there’s been a shift very comparable to what we witnessed in the 1960s with the Jesus Revolution.”

    Francey said he thinks the reason stems from the tumultuous times seen across the globe.

    “A spiritual awakening doesn’t come out of prosperity and peace,” he said. “Whether it’s geopolitical, whether it’s economic, there’s usually something that creates a hunger for people to want to turn back to God, and I think COVID, isolation, all the things we witnessed the last five years, from every sphere in our society, everything that could be shaken, was shaken.

    “What that does,” he added, “is it gets people asking the hard questions: ‘Where does our strength, confidence and purpose come from?’”

    On Saturday, he held the fourth annual Baptize California event, which he said could be the largest number of people ever baptized at a Corona del Mar beach. Since his first event in 2023, a nationwide movement has grown.

    Francey’s goal is to take the movement international and, ultimately, unite all Christians in a broad effort focused on the spirituality of water baptism, which, he said, is the public declaration of belief in the death, birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

    On Saturday, people from hundreds of local churches gathered at Pirates Cove Beach in Corona del Mar, a historic site of baptisms during the so-called Jesus Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The beach was also a key filming site for the 2023 “Jesus Revolution” film.

    The ocean baptisms — people were laid backward under water, signifying death, and then raised back up, signifying resurrection — were accompanied by music from some of the biggest stars of Christian Gospel. Among those expected were Tiffany Hudson, Abbie Gamboa and Matti Crocker.

    The gathering represents a broader trend, Francey said, with what he and other experts describe as a worldwide surge in adults taking a greater interest in Christianity and water baptism.

    Saturday’s event was the warm-up to an even more ambitious plan Francey has for May 24, Pentecost Sunday, which is 50 days after Easter and signifies the beginning of the Christian Church, when Christians believe Jesus Christ, as the son of God, transitioned from his earthly ministry to the ministry of the church through the Holy Spirit.

    On that day, Francey plans to link thousands of churches worldwide in a massive water baptism event.

    The goal, he said, is to make Pentecost Sunday, “Water Baptism Day.”

    Oceans Church and Baptize California

    Francey, who came to California from Idaho, started Oceans Church with just seven people in 2018. Since that time, the church has grown significantly, and last year Oceans Church bought a building near the Irvine Spectrum.

    The idea for the focus on baptism, Francey said, came three years into his now seven-year journey, after he asked God for guidance.

    “I was having a prayer time alone, reading a book on spiritual awakenings in America,” he said, which brought him to a story about the largest water baptism in American history.

    It caught his attention for two reasons: It was at Pirates Cove in 1990, and it happened after one of Pastor Greg Laurie’s Harvest Crusades, in which a couple thousand people went to Corona del Mar to be baptized.

    “Something hit my heart deeply, and I had this internal prompting that I believe was God, saying, ‘Mark, I want you to do this again,’” he said. “I want this to be a gift that your church gives to the big sea church — the body of Christ.”

    Francey said he took the idea to his elders, to his church, and everyone was on board with the plan.

    “I felt like God downloaded me, like your hands can’t write fast enough what God is giving you,” he said of the process, which started in 2022. “I felt like the Lord wanted me to do this at Pirates Cove and do it on Pentecost Sunday.”

    “He wanted me to unite the church of Southern California, then unite the church of all of California,” Francey added. “Then it felt like if I could unite the church of California, I could unite the church of America. Then, he said, if I could do it in America, could I do it in the world? And I said, ‘Yeah!’”

    Francey said to get started, he bought the domain Baptize Southern California and all the states. He also bought Baptize Canada, Baptize Africa and Baptize Europe.

    With the domains in hand, he planned his first event, and just as that was happening, Francey said Laurie’s “Jesus Revolution,” film, which is the story of Laurie’s early life and ministry, of the baptism at Pirates’ Cove and how it changed America, came out in theaters.

    The timing seemed meant to be, he said.

    At Francey’s first Pirates Cove baptism in 2023, 200 churches participated and 4,166 people were baptized.

    In 2024, Francey took the event to Huntington Beach and baptized just more than 6,000 people, with more than 500 churches participating.

    “The cool part was we extended it to local churches all over the state, so we had one church in every county of California that participated,” he said, which meant another 6,000 people were baptized in churches along the coast of California, bringing the total to 12,000 on Pentecost Sunday in May 2024.

    “This last year, we did it again at Huntington Beach, but we added Baptize America, so we had all the churches that participated in California, but we onboarded every single state, we had churches in every state and saw over 26,000 people between all the locations get baptized on Pentecost Sunday 2025.”

    Baptize the world

    Now, as a follow-up to Saturday’s event, Francey said Baptize the World will be added for this year’s May 24 Pentecost Sunday, which he hopes will mark the start of making Pentecost the “water baptism day.”

    “We feel like God wants to make that the day the church celebrates water baptism,” he said, adding that the idea to focus on baptism comes from Biblical teachings.

    “I believe part of what we’re doing is God re-excavating a buried church truth,” he said, citing Acts 2 in the Bible, which tells the story of Pentecost. “When it was born, it says 3,000 believed and 3,000 got baptized. That’s our goal: to get the Christian world celebrating baptism on Pentecost Sunday.”

    Francey said he believes the momentum from the past events, and this weekend, will get more people aware of the focus on water baptisms, which are done in the ocean, lakes or in huge tanks at church sites.

    He is also hopeful that many more churches worldwide will be part of the larger event later this month. All will be linked via a livestream so people can really feel part of a massive movement, he said. A special broadcast featuring well-known Christian leaders is planned to air that day from the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.

    Ed Stetzer, dean of the Talbot School of Theology at Biola University, who studies Christian social and cultural trends, agrees there has been an increased focus on mass baptisms recently and said this occurs when Christians feel intentional about the public display of their faith.

    “When you gather many people together for baptism, it amplifies that public witness,” he said. “In a cultural moment where many believers sense a need to be more open about their faith, mass baptisms become one visible way to do that.”

    While he said research has shown a “vibe shift” of people being more curious and open to faith in places where it had previously waned, but using the term “resurgence” might be too strong.

    “We haven’t observed widespread increases in church attendance across the board,” he said, but he added that renewed interest “can precede renewed practice.”

    The group whose interest has increased, according to recent studies and polling, is among younger men.

    “There are also secondary indicators, such as rising Bible sales and broader engagement with religious content, that reinforce this trend,” Stetzer said. “Notably, the shift of young men attending church at higher rates than young women marks a meaningful change from previous patterns.”

    The increase of just that is also what Pastor RayGene Wilson of West Coast Life Church in Murrieta is witnessing.  His church, he said, saw a huge boost, especially among young men, after the first Pirates Cove baptism in 2023.

    “At the first baptisms, there were a lot of high school and college-aged guys,” he said. “They were like the poster for our church. These cool young guys were lifting their hands out of the water, and everybody loved it. Even older people love to see young people see their lives change. It really has such a positive impact.”

    And he said he’s already seeing Pentecost Sunday water baptisms take on greater importance.

    “Every year around Pentecost Sunday, it’s water baptism, it’s just automatic,” he said. “At our church, Easter Sunday is huge, Christmas is huge, and Pentecost Sunday water baptism is huge. Those are the three big things in our church.”

    And, he said, the interest in water baptism isn’t just at his church but nationwide.

    “People are talking about their baptisms on Pentecost Sunday, that was never a thing before Mark started this,” Wilson said.

    “We have so many differences and so many churches out there. For Christians, this is the one unifying belief everyone shares,” Wilson said. “We don’t have a lot in common with Methodists, Presbyterians, or even with the Catholics or traditional churches, but they still get water baptized.”

    Wilson also said that the festival nature of mass baptisms adds appeal for those seeking knowledge about Christianity.

    “The beach is just kinda fun, kinda cool, that’s the only difference,” he said, adding that his baptisms on Pentecost will be done in a tank. “I think the event factor, 1,000%, draws people. Just like concerts, it’s like a big event. When there’s an event with music, and it’s centered around something spiritual and fulfilling, they’re there.”

    Being an event, Wilson said, takes it away from a “liturgical religious thing.”

    “People are cheering now when somebody gets baptized,” he added. “That didn’t used to be a thing in water baptisms.”

    Taylor Burton, who planned to volunteer on Saturday helping people get baptized, also found her way at Francey’s 2024 Huntington Beach mass baptism. While she hadn’t planned to be baptized, she said she became curious after seeing signs posted along Pacific Coast Highway.

    “The beach was packed and people were around bonfires,” she recalled. “There was live gospel music and a stage on the sand. It almost felt like a festival.”

    Burton said that while her life was going well, she felt lost inside. As the event was closing down, she said, she heard the voice of God and felt the Holy Spirit.

    “There was something different, and I felt this sensation of peace,” she said. “I honestly jumped up and ran to a volunteer booth. They got me connected to a pastor, and I was baptized in my jeans and jacket. Something was shifting the atmosphere, and I wanted to be involved.”

    For Francey, Saturday’s celebration at Pirates Cove was a hint of what he expects to happen on a much broader scale on Pentecost.

    “It’s not about one church, it’s about one message,” he said. “When the global church works together for a great endeavor, it gets the attention of the whole world.

    “Even the non-believing world,” he added, “takes notice of unity.”

    ​ Orange County Register 

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