“IBSA has made a major impact on how we do ministry in the west side of Chicago,” said Maurice Gaiter, pastor of Empower Community Church of Chicago. Last year, Gaiter attended an IBSA-hosted event led by State Evangelism Director Scott Harris that he called “life-changing.”
“It has given us the model to make Jesus known,” Gaiter shared. “Every Sunday we’ve been out in the neighborhoods making Jesus known.” Church members have handed out over 500 Bibles and two churches have been planted. And the church’s baptisms increased five-fold last year.
His church is not alone.
The latest tally of church vital signs in Illinois, the Annual Church Profile, shows an 8.8% increase in baptisms from 2023 to 2024. IBSA churches have finally surpassed the 2019 numbers, which came just before Covid-19 curtailed church activities.
Salt Church is reaching students at Illinois State University and across Bloomington-Normal.
“While I don’t think it’s helpful to think of pre-Covid as the ‘good old days’ to which we should want to return,” IBSA Executive Director Nate Adams said, “looking at 2019 can provide churches with a sort of statistical benchmark for the future. That’s why I find it wonderfully encouraging that last year our Illinois churches surpassed their 2019 baptism number and moved beyond it.”
Harris is also very pleased with the improvement.
“We have talked for several years about our desire to see a move of the Holy Spirit that brings a fresh wave of salvations across our state,” Harris said. “We give God the glory for what he is doing.”
Harris saw the trend in 2022 of churches that reported one or zero baptisms. There were 23 churches represented in a group he invited to participate in Ignite training. Together they focused on simple, regular actions by church members that bring the gospel to the community and encourage people to share their faith.
“We asked them to start by finding one thing they could do in their community to start meeting people, and meeting a need,” Harris said.
“Just as I have done in churches I served as interim pastor, we encouraged pastors to lead their members in prayer, and to care and share,” Harris said. “We got on our knees in worship services and prayed for lost people. Then we looked for opportunities to show the neighbors that we care. And church members began to share their faith.”
In the Ignite cohort Gaiter joined, 23 churches had reported a baptism statistic of one or none in the previous year. In 2024, 15 of those churches together baptized 68 people.
For churches struggling to bring people to faith and to the waters of baptism, baptizing just one or two new believers after a long dry spell is invigorating.
“We brought in the top ten baptizing churches in a several size categories to our first evangelism roundtable, to see what they were doing in here in Illinois that was proving effective,” Harris said. “We shared our findings with churches that needed encouragement— because we knew it’s possible to bring people to faith in our state.”
At an IBSA Annual Meeting several years ago, a messenger said from the floor that making non-baptizing churches a ministry priority should be included in staff goals. His motion was heartily approved. And it’s being met now, year after year. And the impact multiplies. “That has taken root, and God is bringing fruit,” Harris said.
Jeremy Bennett baptizes a student as Dorrisville Baptist celebrates creekside.
The number of IBSA churches reporting one or none in the ACP baptism report declined from 623 out of about 900 IBSA churches in 2022, to 477 in 2023, and then to 430 last year.
The next goal is to once again reach 4,000 baptisms in a single year.
Harris continues to bring together pastors who want to see God revive their church’s passion for evangelism. He invites those who are interested in participating to contact him about the next round of Ignite cohorts, and to engage in the Revive Conference in Mt. Vernon March 20-21. More information is available at the IBSA website.
How it worked
According to Pastor Gaiter, Empowerment Community Church went from recording five baptisms in 2023 to 25 in 2024. And 2025 is getting off to a good start. In the next few months, the pastor said 11 young people are in line to be baptized.
“We strongly believe in baptism,” he said. “Baptism by immersion is an outside representation of what should transpire inside.”
This summer the church plans to set a pool up in its parking to host a baptism service every third Sunday from June through September as part of its “We See You” outreach campaign based on Matthew 9:35-38. Jesus went about the cities and villages sharing the gospel and was moved with compassion by them. The people were scattered abroad and had no shepherd, the harvest was plenty, but the workers were few.
Like the cities and villages Jesus visited, Gaiter said Empowerment Community is in a multicultural neighborhood. He and his church members see the people just like Jesus did. “We want to baptize 50 people from all races and backgrounds,” said Gaiter.
“Baptisms should be the first fruits of revitalized health in churches, and an early indicator of good things to come,” Adams said. “When churches rekindle their passion for reaching the lost, the other markers of healthy church life will often follow.”
More improvement to come
In his report to the IBSA Board, Adams pointed out three take-aways from the 2024 ACP tally.
1. IBSA churches saw continued 2024 increases in baptisms (+8.8%), AM Worship (+3%), SS Attendance (+1.1%) and VBS (+10.4%). Still, these categories are significantly lower than 2019 except for baptisms. IBSA churches did have a significant increase in professions of faith—up 15.6% from 2023 and 17.7% from 2019.
2. 2024 missions involvement in IBSA churches continued to increase significantly since last year in all areas. However, the involvement has not recovered to 2019 levels. As one example, the participation by church members in local missions projects five years ago was 19,824; but the number last year was 15,906. That’s a decline of 19.7%. While we can’t blame Covid for everything, its impact is still felt.
3. Overall giving to IBSA churches has increased beyond the 2019 level, and 2024 CP giving is 1% higher than 2023, but remains 13% lower than 2019.
IBSA churches received total offerings of $92,863,510 in 2019; five years later that number had bounced back from Covid declines to 104,123,056. CP giving declined in that period, however, from $6,205,953 to $5,392,920.