Life Center Church - First Baptisms!

From Medical Camp to a Thriving Church Community

Life Center Church – first Baptisms!The lasting fruit of the 2024 medical camp was the timely birthing of Life Center Church. The fellowship has thrived under the leadership of Pastor Shone and his wife Rachel, who is an incredible worship leader. In the update below, Shone explains how the church’s growth is impacting lives:Sunday services at Life Center Church have continued, and we added Wednesday fellowships. We have received more people in the church so that the newly born-again group has greatly increased in number.

Growing Disciples Through Teaching and Fellowship

This increase necessitated that we begin a weekly discipleship class to teach the basics of our Christian faith—what it means to be born again and how the gospel affects every area of life. We therefore created a class every Monday from 2:00 PM to 6:00 PM starting 16th September 2024. Here we spent time in the Word of God, allowed room for easy and hard questions, prayed together, and tackled the question of baptism.In our baptism discussion, we used the words of Jesus in Mark as our guide. In Mark 16:16, Jesus said, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned” (NIV).We also looked at Romans 6:4 where Paul writes, “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (NIV).

Beyond these weekly meetings, we also dedicated four Sunday services to the topic of baptism. From these teachings, 12 people registered to be baptized. This was a great harvest for our church and community.

A Historic Day of Baptism and New Beginnings

We scheduled a baptism on Sunday, the 13th of October 2024. After our morning service, we set off to Kiyanja Rotary Grounds, Mbarara, where there is much water for immersion. It is a 3.5 km distance from our church, and since we could not fit everyone in the means of transport available, the majority of our people walked on foot to witness their church's first baptism service.On the baptism ground, we lifted songs of praise and the twelve were fully immersed and baptized in water just as Jesus was at the Jordan. At Life Center Church, we believe that the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ transforms people and the land on which they live. To our church family, this was a day to witness to the community that a new life in Christ is possible. It was a public statement to those who had known these people in their former sinful lives that a new day has dawned!

After baptism, we headed to the pastor’s house, shared lunch, and continued encouraging the newly baptized—assuring them that the old robe is gone and the new one is on. Everyone left equipped to be a spokesperson of the salvation story that transforms lives. As a church, we celebrate the full sprouting of the seed of the gospel among us and continue to be amazed by the stories of God’s redemptive hand in Mbarara. We are now looking forward to baptizing more people, and registration for membership is ongoing. We give all the glory to God!