Baptism: Stories of Grace

Because of the Gospel, we all have a story to tell. The details may be different, but the parts are all the same. When we share our story with others, we glorify God, exalt Jesus, rely on the Holy Spirit, and invite others to respond to the Gospel. We hope you are encouraged as brothers and sisters in Christ by the grace stories below!

Please let us hear YOUR story by emailing to summit@summitupstate.org or your campus pastor.

I grew up in the church and surrounded by the Christian faith. I practiced faith relatively casually and did not have a personal relationship with Jesus. In my post-grad years, I began to take my faith more seriously. I joined the Summit community and a life group and surrounded myself with quality Christian friends and mentors. Through diving deeper into Scripture, I felt called to publicly profess my faith through baptism to declare my commitment to a relationship and continuing walk with Jesus. 

My birth parents divorced when I was around 3 or so, I grew up with a single mother that worked a lot and couldn't always be there at home trying to provide for us. She took us to different churches and meetings of different denominations from Jewish to Catholic and a lot of Christian denominations in between. Horrible things happened to me as a little boy by grown men that should never happen to a child, so I grew up a skinny troubled child going to church. I had horrible nightmares, but I grew up knowing about God and that Jesus died for me and saved me from hell because He loves me. I joined the Army National Guard around 20 years old and served in Field Artillery. I have had many careers over the years of my life, from being on the carnival traveling to the military to truck driving to cooking for the Salvation Army at a homeless shelter to being a steel worker now. I got introduced to drugs and alcohol when I started working for the carnival on a traveling roller coaster and when I left there I spent a lot of time traveling all over the country, homeless and an addict and drunk. In February of 2014, I was in Eureka, California, and finally had enough and surrendered to the Lord and entered a year-long Christian program called New Life Discipleship Program. I graduated from that program February 2015, and while I was in that program I became saved and was baptized in a creek which had freezing cold water (just like this last time with Summit Church:). I asked to be baptized again with Summit and Pastor Jody Bowser because, over the years, I fell away from the Lord chasing the desires of the world and the flesh and I felt like it's what God was telling me He wanted me to do to get close to Him again.

1 Timothy 1:15 tells us: “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”

This is the verse that most spoke to me when I was lost in life and it seemed that I was a chief of sinners, but it also tells me that Jesus the Christ died for my sins and is my Redeemer.

I began to understand about God that when He created us in His image, it wasn't just physical but spiritual and our attributes, we experience emotions and so does God. He has known about us and what choices we would make and mistakes in life since from before the creation of the universe. He exists both inside of time and outside of it, so He sees past , present, and future and created His plans accordingly. In the beginning was the word and the was with God and the word is God and through Him all things were made and without Him, nothing that was made was made.... Christ Jesus is the Word. The devil tries to throw everything thing we have ever done wrong in our face from time to time, but he got kicked out of heaven, how do my sins and mistakes compare to that, think of how hard it is to get kicked out of heaven. As Charles Stanley said, “you cannot out sin Christ's sacrifice and God's gift of salvation and grace.” Salvation is instant, and sanctification is a day-by-day process. I know Christ Jesus is my eternal Savior and High Priest, He advocates for me before the Father, and I have no righteousness of my own. I boldly speak the name of Jesus.

This is my story, and praise God for running to find me and pull me from the drowning tarry pit of sin to spend eternity with Him and serving Him and praising His holy name. Maybe if it is God's will one day He will send me a godly wife who loves Him first. God is good all the time.

Tracy N.

What I do for the Lord no longer feels like a requirement or chore but a deep desire to know and please Him. I am thankful for a good God who knows us, believes in us, and gives us purpose and hope!

The Lord has shown how He has pursued me from a very young age. Although I do not come from a Christian family, I attended a Bible-believing school for my education growing up. I heard the Gospel through the influences in school and the community that came from there, but because my family didn’t believe and we didn’t go to church, I had a lot of questions. In first grade, I remember hearing a Bible lesson about our afterlife and eternal life. That prompted many thoughts, questions, and fears, so I tried to pray my own salvation prayer, but because I didn’t have any trusted relationship with a believer or understanding from church teaching, I wasn’t really sure about what I was doing. In the third grade, I was doing a Bible assignment and one of the questions asked, “How do you know you’re really saved?” I had a lot of doubts leading up to that point, so when I read that question it was like I had another chance to understand the Gospel and get clarity on my standing with the Lord. I never really struggled with believing in His Spirit working or the fact that He was a Sovereign God. The main thing I struggled with understanding was whether I was saved. I was with my cousin Anne in that moment and she led me through a prayer of confessing my sins, asking for forgiveness, and accepting Jesus into my heart. Through further conversation with her, I came to understand how simple it was to accept Jesus into our lives and that there was nothing I could do to actually save myself.

From the point that I accepted Jesus into my life, I continued with a lot of questions. I struggled with a lot of shame, knowing now that I was struggling specifically with my identity. However, since I didn’t know that and I didn’t really have any direction on how or where to grow in my faith, I remained stagnant. Throughout my teen years, I continued to struggle with shame. By God’s grace, I was surrounded by people who really lived out the Gospel. Through just spending time and doing life with them, they showed me how we are made new in Christ. They showed me that we don’t need to feel shame and how to walk with Christ in confidence and joy. I finally understood how we can have victory in Christ and no longer identify with any past or current sins. I felt a lot of conviction from the Spirit for how I was living and thinking throughout high school, and I finally chose to fully live my life for Christ during my senior year. A major turning point in my life was understanding the difference in knowing the Gospel and living out the Gospel that has power to transform lives. Since the time that I rededicated my life to living for Christ, the Lord has continued to mold and shape me into the person He wants me to be. In Him, I have found hope, satisfaction, and true identity. As I grow my relationship with the Lord, the biggest difference that I’ve experienced is how my desires are shifting more and more from selfish ones to desires that lead me to honoring and glorifying Him. What I do for the Lord feels less like a requirement or chore, but a deep desire to know, love, and please Him. I am thankful for a good God who knows us, believes in us, and gives us purpose and hope.

Alana w.

I first heard God’s story from people around me. His story become even more clear when I understood that He left the 99 to rescue me! I realized I needed rescuing because I couldn’t do life without Him giving me His strength, peace, joy. I responded to God’s story by giving my life to Him and now by trying to glorify Him in everything I do.

I always believed in God as I grew up in a Christian household, but my faith was not my own. I just copied everyone around me. Towards the end of high school, I struggled mentally and questioned my faith. It wasn’t until I joined OneLife Institute that I learned what true community looked like. It was there when I made my faith my own as I discovered new things about myself and my relationship with God. I got saved the summer after and I can confidently say Jesus is my Lord and Savior. Even though I still struggle and make mistakes, I now know who I can run to when things get hard. Thank you, Jesus, for the blood!

More to Come

We will continue adding more stories of grace in the coming weeks, so please check back!