Bethel Baptist Church
855 Brotherton Road, Escondido, CA 92025
The lights dimmed in the purple quarter-circle church, and Pastor Hitchcock appeared behind the baptismal pool situated high in the back of the Sanctuary. New congregant Catherine, clad in a white robe, stepped down into the pool up to her shoulders. “As we know,” explained Hitchcock, “baptism isn’t what saves us. The blood of Jesus is what saves us. Baptism is a very spiritual act, a following of Christ in obedience, a physical representation of what has happened to us spiritually. And it’s part of our membership requirement.” Catherine was baptized as an infant, but “now that she has come to the point in her life where she has accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, she wants to follow Him in obedience to baptism.” [+more]