Feature Area

A Church who dumps toxic trash in the lake…on purpose

I drink green tea, I recycle, I’ve spent summers planting trees, “Paper or plastic?” I choose plastic, I even support Al Gore’s initiatives in being all about the environment, but a couple times a year I love to take as big a group as I can out to the lake and dump toxic trash in the water. I find nothing more fulfilling.

This last week 6 people from our church decided to make Sunday afternoon a milestone marker in their journey with God. It isn’t very often that decisions we make along the way to get closer or further from God are as public as getting baptized and so when it happens we figure it is a monumental step, a drastic decision in a life full of decisions.

Here is what we did. For the second time this summer we met up as a whole community at a lake near our city. We take over a chunk of the beach and hang out together for food and games and chit-chat, and eventually to celebrate, cry and pray with people taking a massive step in their lives. This time, the 6 people going in the water told our crowd why they were doing it. One said it was about making his faith public. Another said, “I am starting over with Jesus in charge of my life”. I loved another comment from a teenage girl, “I’m out of excuses for giving my life back to God; I need to take the plunge literally”. Whatever the line, each of the 6 spoke of coming to a place in their journey where they needed to make a decision that served as a turning point.

A couple years ago a guy told me that I better be careful when I baptized him, cuz when he washed off his past the water was going to boil. I love that idea. I love the picture of meeting Jesus at the bottom of the lake, handing him the failures of our lives and resurfacing clean; starting over fresh.

I think about when I got baptized. What did I leave at the bottom of the lake? What have on gone scuba diving for and integrated back into my life? What toxic junk do I carry that I need to dump back in the water?

When ‘dunkee’ #1 came out of the water the beach erupted in a deafening combination of hooting and hollering, screaming and applauding; an honor bestowed on dunkees 1-6. Some cried, some cheared, some smiled, some quietly reflected, but each dunkee began a new start clean, pure, and hopeful.

If your swimming in Hayward Lake, be forewarned, September 23, 2007, New Heights Church had 6 folks dump their toxic trash in the water. Hopefully more to come next summer.

Greg Elford
“Dunker” Pastor
New Heights Church.