The Dean Dome, a place known for buzzer beaters and packed stands, became a cathedral of praise for a day. Thousands gathered and hundreds responded to the gospel in two packed services. The scene felt like something the Bible promised: a harvest where seeds finally took root.
The Summit Church led the events with one clear aim — to bring the good news to students and anyone hungry for hope. The church set up portable baptismal troughs outside the arena and baptized 376 people under clear skies. It was a vivid picture of public repentance and new life.
J.D. Greear preached a simple, urgent message: the plan of salvation calls people to turn to Christ and be made new. He spoke plainly about sin, shame, and the empty promises people chase. The gospel was offered as the only real fix for a restless heart.
“All your life has felt like a quest to find some missing piece,” he told the audiences. “You thought you might find it in the sorority, or the frat party, or the job, or the perfect body, or the boyfriend, or the marriage, or the kids, or the drugs.
“You spent your whole life loving things that just didn’t love you back. What you’re looking for is found in the resurrection. It’s found in eternal life. It’s found in reunion with God.”
Greear pointed listeners back to a truth Augustine voiced when he said our hearts are restless until they rest in God. That line landed hard in an arena full of seekers and skeptics. It spelled out why baptism matters: it marks the end of searching and the start of belonging.
“For some of you, you feel like there’s an obstacle between you and God, shame over past choices, addictions. You can’t seem to shake an inability to find happiness — happiness always feels like it’s just beyond you, an inability to be the kind of father or husband or person that you want to be.
“[But] Christianity is not just a new worldview, it’s not a new set of beliefs, it’s not a new set of morals — it’s the power of an empty tomb. Christianity is not turning over a new leaf. Christianity is the power of new life.”
After both services, hundreds moved forward for conversation with counselors and to follow Christ in baptism. The sight of new believers in robes and wetsuits beside championship banners made a statement: glory belongs to God, not to trophies. For many students, this was the first public step toward a transformed life.
“Heaven is rejoicing and so are we!” the church’s official social media account said, noting that “lives were forever changed.”
“To Him alone be all glory and honor!”
Baptism is not theatre. It is a biblical ordinance that declares a death to the old self and a rising to new life in Christ. When hundreds submit to that symbol in one place, it proves the gospel still moves people in dramatic ways.
This event at a famed sports arena is a reminder that no venue is too secular for the kingdom of God. The church carried the message of repentance and resurrection into a campus space and many responded. The story is simple and sacred: souls brought from darkness into light, and heaven rejoicing at each turn.