DAPHNE, Ala. — Sunday’s planned baptism in Mobile Bay brought only 12 visitors and zero dunkings to May Day Park, but that didn’t discourage the Rev. Jerry Tomecek, who organized the event, in part, to bring awareness to an issue close to his heart.

He, his wife Mary Ann, and their grandson Casey, 19, waited at the water Sunday evening, but the few visitors had already been baptized at their home churches.

Tomecek said the baptisms were less successful than he had hoped because “people don’t consider it very important or most churches have their own baptism hubs.”

“I’ve learned, I’m old enough, been in the game long enough; that’s just how people are,” he said. “People have to be educated; I don’t take it personally.

“They’re not rebuking me; they have their own agenda.”

Tomecek said he will continue doing God’s work and expanding his ministry. He is renovating a 10-by-25-foot deck boat called “Bay of the Holy Spirit 1.”

“I call it the church without walls,” he said. “I have to get the boat done; I see myself preaching to people along the Causeway from the boat.”

He hopes to drum up awareness to restore the bay’s historical name in order to glorify God, he said. Spanish maps from the 1500s label the water as “Bahía del Espíritu Santo” — or Bay of the Holy Spirit.

According to a U.S. Geological Survey supervisor, Lou Yost, most people in the area surrounding the feature must agree with the name change; then the board must vote.

Tomecek said he has gathered support through billboards, license plates, his Web site — bayoftheholyspirit.com — and word of mouth since 1991, and he awaits God’s advice for the next step.

He’s received honorary proclamations from Mobile Mayor Sam Jones and Gov. Bob Riley, but the official renaming will take overwhelming support; one of the survey’s laws states that changing a water body’s name to reflect historical usage isn’t enough to justify the switch.

Tomecek will continue to perform baptisms in the bay by appointment and will hold a ceremony at 11 a.m. on Saturday where the Causeway crosses under the bay way to dedicate the historical sign that tells the body’s name origin.

The gulf is where the last revival — just before the final judgement of the world — will begin, according to Jerry, who said he learned this from a vision he received from God. The sign dedication will draw attention and miracles will begin to happen, he said.

“The sign is the next genre, the paradigm,” he said.