Rick Warren called the moment ‘historic’ when Alberto Flores became the 45,000th person to be baptised by the church. Flores was baptised along with his 13-year-old son, Andre. ‘This weekend is a historic weekend for our church,’ Warren told his congregation last Sunday, ‘Somebody in this group is going to be the 45,000th baptism of Saddleback Church, and I'm going to take that person out to lunch.’ Almost 800 people were baptised across Saddleback's 16 campuses last weekend alone, taking the total to 45,743. The news follows research that suggests the US church is in decline: Saddleback said it saw its own increasing number of baptisms as a source of encouragement in contrast to these pessimistic reports.