Rock Hill churches hold joint baptism at Rock Hill Aquatics Center pool

There was a lifeguard on duty at the Rock Hill Aquatics Center on Sunday, but she wasn’t the one saving people in the swimming pool.

Instead, a coalition of local churches rented out the pool Sunday evening to offer a “community baptism” to all who felt moved to come into the water.

Sixteen people in total got baptized in a poolside service that included prayer and a musical performance from students at the Academy Christian School. Many more family and church members watched from the stands and applauded each believer as they went under and gasped for air as they came back up.

Pastor Jonathan Pannell of Emmanuel Church of the Nazarene performed the baptisms along with Faith Family Christian Center and Red Path Baptist Church. The churches advertised the event around the Rock Hill area ahead of time and sent out vans to collect people for the service.

“We’re big on connecting with the community,” said Pannell, who hopes baptismal services like this one will become an annual event. “The main idea was to reach out to the unchurched, people who didn’t have the opportunity to go through this experience before.”

Most of those who got into the pool where children, some under the age of 6 and barely able to keep their heads above the water as they paddled out to the pastor. But others, such as Laura Duncan, made the decision to be baptized at a later age.

The 23-year-old Duncan was baptized as a small child but said things changed at a church meeting three weeks earlier.

“I’ve been a Christian for as long as I can remember,” she said. “But the past few years have been rocky as I became a teenager and a young adult.”

A family friend invited her to attend church at Red Path Baptist Church east of Rock Hill, and something about the service spoke to her so strongly she decided to rededicate her life to God.

“Being invited, that was (God’s) way of slowly bringing me in,” Duncan said. “The person who invited me had no idea the miracle they were working.”

Standing beside the pool dripping wet after her baptism, Duncan said she was “trying not to cry.”

One entire family was baptized. Shekeitha “Kiki” Cloud planned to have only her 6-year-old daughter, Skylar, and 4-year-old son, J.J., baptized, but the children encouraged her and dad, Joe Anderson, to get baptized at the same time.

“They said, ‘Mommy, you got it, you can do it,’” Cloud said. “And you want to be an example to your children.”

Cloud and her husband both serve as youth leaders at Emmanuel, so their decision to be publicly baptized had even more significance for the church.

“I want my family. I don’t want any of us to go to hell,” Cloud said. “I’m just thanking God. I know the enemy is going to try to fight me, but I won’t let him.”

This story was originally published November 8, 2015 at 8:21 PM with the headline "Rock Hill churches hold joint baptism at Rock Hill Aquatics Center pool."