458 Baptised in One Day as North Carolina Church Sets 137-Year Record

Biltmore Church in North Carolina has baptised 458 people in a single day, setting a new record in the church’s 137-year history.

Nearly 4,000 people gathered beside a lake in Fletcher, western North Carolina, for the church’s annual outdoor baptism service on 13 September.

More than 400 people had registered to be baptised before the weekend, but Lead Pastor Bruce Frank said another 50 to 60 came forward between Sunday morning and the afternoon gathering.

The final total surpassed the previous record of 389 baptisms at the church’s outdoor service last year.

Biltmore Church traces its history to 1889 and now operates across multiple campuses in western North Carolina. It baptises people throughout the year but has held its large outdoor baptism gathering annually for around two decades.

Frank said most of the people currently being baptised at Biltmore are adults.

He attributed that in part to church members sharing the Gospel personally with neighbours, colleagues and friends.

Among those baptised was a man who travelled by motorcycle from New York to North Carolina specifically for the service.

He had previously come to faith following conversations with Nick Friederich, a tattoo artist and lay leader at Biltmore’s Hendersonville campus who regularly talks about the Gospel with people while working.

After moving to New York, the man continued watching Biltmore’s services online before returning to North Carolina for his baptism.

Others baptised during the service included people using wheelchairs, a man with a terminal illness and members of families who entered the water after seeing relatives take the same step.

The 458 baptisms brought Biltmore’s total for 2026 to 636.

The church recorded 686 baptisms during 2025, its highest annual total to date, and Frank expects the 2026 figure to exceed 700 by the end of the year.

For Frank, however, the individual stories behind the total remain central.

“Behind every one of those, there’s a person,” he said. “And behind every one of those people, there’s a story.”

Sources

• Biblical Recorder
• Baptist State Convention of North Carolina
• Biltmore Church