Following a series of small group Bible studies dotting the city of Jakarta one of the largest baptisms took place there Saturday, July 28 as 1,637 people joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

“The dent isn’t huge in a wider megalopolis of 22 million,” said Michael L. Ryan, a vice president for the Adventist world church. “But church leaders there are hoping they can baptize 4,500 new members by the end of this effort,” Ryan said of the initiative that will hold another large-scale evangelism meeting in October.

“For five years the Adventist Church in Jakarta baptized [into membership] only 900 to 1,200 people a year,” said Mastur Sitompul, president of the Adventist Church in Jakarta. “But this time in just four months the result was hundreds of new members.”

“I think they were attracted with the way Adventists explain the truth from the same Bible. Others said, ‘I want to renew my life,’” Sitompul said.

Nearly 700 small groups studying the Bible for several months came together throughout the week, averaging about 17,000 in attendance for each evening meeting. Local church leaders estimate 9,000 in attendance were not members of the Adventist Church.

“More could have been baptized,” Ryan said, “But the speakers were quite clear in their instructions that they really wanted people who were prepared well.”

The months of small group studies and resulting baptisms are part of the Adventist church’s Hope for Big Cities program, launched in 2005 to renew the church’s efforts to reach out to large cities where it has traditionally had a small presence. 

There are 106 Adventist churches in Jakarta with plans to double that number in the next seven years, Ryan said.