EP 591: Baptized California - A Transformative Experience

The purpose of this show the purpose of this show is to guide you to realign with habits that get you to live the life you've always dreamed of. This this is the habit based lifestyle podcast with Jesse Jewel. This is the habit based lifestyle where you can access your full potential right now. Finally break free from destructive habits that dream life. If you want it, you can.

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Welcome back to the habit based lifestyle podcast. I'm your host Jesse Yul. And today I want to talk about baptized California and the experience we had. And this was part of our, part of my 90 day challenge. But this last weekend we had an event which we did last year, me and my wife Katie. Last year I was baptized Southern California. This year it was baptized California. The difference last year was it was Southern California. We did it at Pirates Cove. We, we got to pray for people. And, and not only that, but we got to, we didn't get a baptized last year. We just didn't sign up for it. But there was about 4, 200 people at Pirates Cove. It was, it was wild. But this year we did it at Huntington beach, partnered with our church, Ocean's Church, and we got to be a part of the full experience. And not only that, it was, it was way bigger over, I think over 13,000 people got baptized in two days. And, and it was the largest water baptism ever. But also Huntington beach, you know, they had a concert for two days. It was incredible. But I want to talk a little bit about it because it was a really powerful experience and it was part of my 90 day challenge. So we, we, instead of last year just praying for people after they got baptized, we stepped in and we got to actually baptize people and it was in the middle of the ocean. Day one was, it was very windy. We had our wetsuits on I think probably day one, we baptized, you know, around 30, 35 people. But I felt completely worn out after we did on day one. And I want to kind of walk through this. So what was really cool is day one, you know, very few people we baptized were from actually the area. A lot of people, pretty much everybody we baptized were from other states that had flown out to California just to get baptized here. And it was. It was really cool. There's something to be said. I will say this about baptism in the ocean versus being baptized. You know, like, I think the first time I remember getting baptized, I did it with my wife, but we did it at our church or at one of our churches that we used to go to in Washington State Champion Center. It was amazing. Never got baptized like that before. We did it together, but when we did it a few years ago as a family, we all did it in the Pacific Ocean. And there's just something to be said about doing it in the ocean. But what was really cool is the interactions that we had. And I want to kind of go through a few things. Number one, was this one of the. One of the lines that we were in. I had a gentleman walk through the line, and I'm like, hey, where are you from? Super excited that, you know, you're getting baptized. And he's from. Actually, I'm from Spokane, Washington. I'm like, no way. I'm from Spokane, Washington, too. He was an older gentleman. He's like, yeah, I'm super excited about getting baptized. And out of all 20 lines, he. He happened to pick my line. Not only that, but I was like, yeah, I went to. You know, I talked to him for a few seconds. I was like, hey, I went to high school, East Valley High School. He's like, oh, my gosh. That's so crazy. He's like, my son's the wrestling coach there. And then there was all these kind of things that. That just were. Were normal. Like, the lake that they lived on was a place that me and my dad used to go fishing when I was a kid. So it was really cool. But this guy was so excited to get baptized. And I want to say this. There's something to be said about a public decoration declaration of faith, but we ran into this guy probably three other times throughout that whole. The rest of the day of that event. What was really cool is, like. He's like, man, this is the best day of my life. He was so excited about getting baptized. He was so excited at the end. And what was really cool was that the guy was actually from where I grew up, and his son was a wrestling coach there. But the biggest thing is, I'll say this, like, everybody was super excited about was, you know, there's. There's a freedom that comes with getting baptized in a renewing of your faith. For a lot of people, maybe they had been baptized before. I don't think we had anybody that had not been baptized before, but they were kind of renewing their faith. And so, you know, a lot of things that I experienced with people was just seeing them kind of renew in their faith and experiencing some freedom behind that. That was really powerful and. And amazing to see. But there's. There's power. Like, you can actually feel the Holy Spirit when you're baptizing people, and then they begin to take it all in. A lot of people got emotional, you know, after. But, like, you know, there was people where. I remember one gentleman, you know, he was almost like having a panic attack. As, you know, we started to baptize him with his girlfriend. He even started to walk out of the water like he wasn't going to do it. And I just remember saying, like, hey, just focus on your breathing and. And this will all lift off. And, you know, he got baptized, and then he got prayed for. And about five minutes later, he's like, I really felt like I left something in the water and that anxiety lifted off of me. But there's something to be said about, you know, the power of the Holy Spirit. There's, you know, yes, there's all kinds of religions out there and things like that, but this is, you know, a living God, a living Holy Spirit that you're getting baptized to. And so the feeling is different. Like, people. You're not getting baptized to a dead God. It's a living God, and that's where the power comes from in this. But day one was literally filled with people that were not actually from California, or at least Orange County. Most of them were all from throughout the state. I just remember getting done that day, and the. And the waves were huge. I saw a lot of people. We had 20 lines going, but I saw a lot of people, you know, just even the people baptizing from our church that were just getting swept up from waves. It was cold even with a wetsuit. And then day two, we kind of knew what to expect. And so day two actually had 60 lines of people. So imagine you have 60 rows of people. There was literally at one time a line all the way out, you know, from where people would check in to get baptized, all the way out. And it was probably 30 to 40 people, you know, wide. And it would go all the way out to the boardwalk, which was about 150, 200 yards. So there was a ton of people there just waiting to get baptized. And then once we started, it was kind of like one after another. I think on day two, I'm sure easily. We probably did 100 to 110 baptisms, which was really cool, but it was just one after another. The waves were huge and they were big, but it was almost like it didn't matter because, you know, you just figure out a way to make it work. And then having that encounter, being able to do that with my wife, being able to do that with some of our personal friends, was really incredible. And it was. You know, if you think about it, this was the largest synchronized water baptism ever in history. And to be a part of that was pretty incredible. And then to be able to. Once you got done, to go listen to a concert and. And just worship was. Was powerful. It's hard to even put into words because you. You see pictures, you. When you're in it, it almost feels surreal, and it almost feels like you're in a movie. And then when you kind of step out of that is like, did that really just happen? I. I think we baptized between somewhere between 120, 140 people. There's people coming down in wheelchairs. There was people. You know, I. I just remember baptizing some people. They couldn't even walk. We just did it in their wheelchair. And just how powerful that was for them to experience it. You know, people teaming up and just really like being on fire to help other people get baptized, to pray for them. And it was such a cool thing to be a part of that and to have a church like the church we go to, Ocean's Church, be the one that kind of like, leads that. And then to really finish off. Last night, they opened it up to Baptize America, where next year, this upcoming year, 2025, they're going to do the same thing we did for California, but they're going to get partnered with other churches all over the United States. They're going to do a synchronized Baptize America. So it's going to be the entire US Teaming up. So it should even be three, four times bigger next year. But it's really cool to be part of a movement and be part of a church and to be part of history, to know that you were kind of on the front lines of that. But it was. It was. It's hard to even describe. I almost feel like I'll have to do another one. Once I kind of go through lessons that I've learned, once I kind of go through the experience I've had. But this was, like, part of my 90 day challenge. This was one of the biggest things spiritually that. That one of my goals and part of the reason I did it was last year. We had such an incredible experience. It was. It was different in the form, in the sense of there wasn't. There wasn't as many people, but it was in, like, a cove of Pirates Cove. And so it was kind of like everybody was on top of you. It almost felt like you were at, like, a football stadium. People were getting baptized, and you could almost hear everybody, like, cheer. This one was way more spread out. It was different. But again, it was just as powerful to see people, one after another, come down, get baptized. The water, the ocean, the waves, and just kind of everything leading up to it. And also, you know, I just remember for a few days leading up to it, it was almost like just this weight and. And, like, pressure of things happening. But then how all of that just went away. I remember day one, a lady that I talked to, she's like, I'm so excited to get baptized. It was. It was really cool. She's like, I want to be the first person in line to do this. She's like, I just been waiting for this for the last year. So, so excited. I remember another guy we actually ended up praying for last year. He stepped into our line, and we're like, hey, don't we know you? Didn't you do this last year? And he's like, yeah. And we were actually one of the ones that prayed for him. And so we got to baptize him this year. But it was really cool to just be a part of the whole event. If you guys are listening to this, maybe you're part of a church not in Orange county, not in California, but, like, hey, I think we'd want to partner with this. You can also reach out to me, set up. I'll get you set up with anything you need to get on the list or get your church on the list and be a part of this, because this is going to be even bigger next year. And, you know, we're going to be doing the same thing at the same place, because it was. It was incredible. My kids were there. I got to do the baptism with my wife and some of our friends and people we go to church with. So it was really cool just to be part of the whole experience. So I'm going to leave you with this. Declaring your faith publicly is a huge declaration, and there's a lot of power that comes with that. Being able to renew, you know, your faith and, you know, have freedom with that. There's a lot of people that were like, yeah, I've been baptized before, but like not recognizing, you can get baptized more than once. You can get baptized, baptized multiple times. You can get baptized really whenever you want. But I think, you know, if you feel like you, you haven't done in a while and you need to make that public declaration, you need to find freedom in that. I would invite you to find a local church to do that or, you know, wait till next year to sign up for, you know, baptize America and be part of that. Either way, if you guys have questions, you want to find out more about what we're doing inside the habit based lifestyle. Again, part of what I do and living a habit based lifestyle is finding habits, finding goals, living a challenge based lifestyle to where I'm constantly working on challenging myself to push myself out of my comfort zone. I can't, you know, imagine 20, 25 years ago being in a place where I'm baptizing a hundred times, 20 people, 140 people, with my wife, having my kids there and watching it and just being a part of that. So if you guys have any questions about baptize California, baptize America or just want to find out more about what we do inside of habit based lifestyle, you can find me on Instagram. Jesse E W E L L. You can also check us out on YouTube, you can also check me out on Facebook or you can send me an email. Jesseabitbaselifestyle.com until next episode. Have a great day.

The purpose of this show the purpose of this show is to guide you to realign with habits that get you to live the life, live the life you've always dreamed of. This, this is the habit based lifestyle podcast with Jesse.