170 baptised at Bigbury-on-Sea

Some 170 people have been baptised in the sea at an event at held at Bigbury-on-Sea.

The event was organised by Merlin Kraft, the founder of the Christian channel BibleLadUK. According to Kraft he began sending out invites via social media to people all over the country after initially receiving requests from people wanting to join.  

Kraft told Premier Christian News that for some people, the event had turned into a sort of medieval pilgrimage.

"There was an extraordinary couple that came from Leeds, and they could only get themselves as far as Kingsbridge, and then they walked the remaining three hours through fields to get to Bigbury to be baptised."

He added, "I'm still in disbelief at what I saw at Bigbury Beach at the weekend. God was in it the whole way. All I can say is all glory to God at this point, but what we saw down there was extraordinary. It was amazing."

The Bigbury-on-Sea event follows similar mass baptism events earlier this year. In the summer over 120 people were baptised over the course of two weekends at Boscombe beach, near Bournemouth. The mass baptism is becoming something of an annual event there, with 92 being baptised the previous year.

Both the Bournemouth and Bigbury-on-Sea events were very much inter-denominational. The Boscombe baptisms were organised by a group of 14 churches in the area known as the BCP Church Collective (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole).

Kraft, who is not a pastor himself, but characterises himself as an ordinary follower of Jesus, has also spoken about the apparent success of BibleLadUK. The popularity of the channel is, he believes, down to his willingness to be honest about his faith and also down to the positive vision of Christianity when faced with the “doom and gloom” in the news.

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