It wasn’t until Gallaty started to deal with his own sin that the Lord began to pull back layers of pride, arrogance, and jealousy in the pastor’s life that he wasn’t even aware were present. After submitting to the Lord in prayer, Gallaty said the Lord showed him, “Jealousy in the pastoral ministry is one of the greatest we all suffer.” The Lord showed him, if you can’t pray for the church down the street to be blessed in spite of your church being blessed, I’ll never bless your church.”
The Lord Said “Spontaneous Baptism”
After 10 months of prayer on his front porch, Gallaty heard the Lord speak [in his head] and He said, “Spontaneous baptism.”
He slightly questioned what he heard, but Gallaty was obedient two days later after hearing the Lord’s instructions on a mid December’s night in Hendersonville, Tennessee. It was the lowest attended Sunday gathering since he had been pastoring at Long Hollow due to all the COVID-19 restrictions and precautions being taken at that time, but 99 people came forward and were baptized.
It was just the beginning of what the Lord had prepared to do. The next Sunday, Long Hollow had planned to go to online-only services for the next four weeks because of the COVID-19 spread in their county, and Gallaty thought the “revival” was over. But it wasn’t.
“These are the heavy raindrops, Robby, before the torrential downpour that’s coming,” he said the Lord shared with him during his porch prayer time later that Sunday night.
A Baptism-Only Service
Two days before Christmas Eve, Long Hollow Baptist Church had a baptism-only service on a Tuesday night, completely unplanned. They featured no preaching and no programming, just the opportunity for those who need to be baptized to have the opportunity to follow through with obedience to the Lord. Long Hollow baptized 81 people that night, some who weren’t even from the state of Tennessee.
“We never encouraged anyone to board a plane to come here, but they felt compelled,” Gallaty said. And he began to realize “this is a genuine move from the Lord” that was compelling them to travel to the church and be baptized. People were sharing with the pastor, “We felt compelled by the Holy Spirit to come. We had to come here to be a part of this.”
That started God bringing 20 people from 15 different states. Gallaty shared with ChurchLeaders.com about testimonies of people watching online, weeping from what they were seeing through the baptisms, and traveling from all over the country to Long Hollow Baptist Church to be baptized because of the Holy Spirit moving genuinely in their lives.
This Can Happen at Your Church Too
“Just like God poured out His spirit on us, He’s looking for people who want to get serious and press into Him and believe again that He can still do these things in their churches,” Gallaty said. He encouraged other churches who might be doubting that this can happen at their church.
Gallaty told ChurchLeaders.com that Long Hollow Baptist Church has worked for five years to develop a strong discipleship program. They did not know that God was preparing them to be ready for the revival He had in store for them.
Gallaty will be kicking off an hour of prayer at the NAMB’s Send Conference on June 13, 2021 prior to the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting.