It was built up as the largest pre-convention evangelistic thrust ever for Southern Baptists – and in the end, it lived up to the billing.
It was built up as the largest pre-convention
evangelistic thrust ever for Southern Baptists – and in the end, it
lived up to the billing.
Some 6,500 to 7,000 out-of-town volunteers joined
with local workers in Nashville, Tenn., to share the gospel in a
variety of ways across the city. All in all, as many as 10,000 to
12,000 volunteer workers joined in the various efforts.
By the end of the pre-convention Crossover
initiative, organizers reported a total of 2,544 professions of faith.
Throughout Nashville, residents were introduced to
the gospel as a result of block parties, festivals, hands-on care
ministries and door-to-door visiting.
Indeed, volunteer teams recorded more than 17,900
visits at homes and apartments across Nashville last week, early
reports indicate. Volunteers shared the gospel more than 4,965 times
and saw 564 people make professions of faith.
A man in his 50s who was working in his yard was
among those introduced to the savior. Within a couple of minutes after
a Crossover team stopped at the home, Andrew Porter of Memphis, Tenn.,
asked the man if he was a Christian.
“No, sir, but he’s working on me,” Robert replied in
a frank voice, noting he had been attending a Church of Christ
congregation for a year or so.
Porter talked with Robert, telling him faith in
Christ would impart to him a realization of “I wish I would have tried
it a long time ago,” he said.
Porter urged Robert to turn to Christ so that when
his life, “is gone, … you’ll be living with him, that it won’t be too
late.” Others in his family would take note of his faith and could come
to Christ as well, Porter added.
Robert agreed to follow Porter in prayer to ask Christ to forgive his sins and become his Lord and Savior.
“Did you notice the sun just came out?” Robert noted
a couple of seconds after the prayer as the clouds broke into a blue
sky. “I’m glad you all stopped by today.”
As the door-to-door volunteers fanned out across
Nashville, several thousand other workers shared the gospel in block
parties and other community initiatives.
The door-to-door effort began with a morning rally
and ended there with an evening celebration in which SBC President
Bobby Welch of Daytona Beach, Fla., said, “This city is better off
right now … because of you going out there.”
The day’s outreach was a tangible reflection of an
initiative Welch has launched for Southern Baptists to baptize 1
million people in the upcoming Oct. 1-Sept. 30 church year. Welch has
named it “The ‘Everyone Can’ Kingdom Challenge! … Witness, Win, and
Baptize One Million.”
“You have made a difference for the Lord Jesus
today,” Welch told Crossover volunteers at the close of the day.
“If you did something with the seed (of the gospel)
today, God is going to grow it,” added Jerry Tidwell, pastor at
Ellendale Baptist Church in Bartlett, Tenn.
At the outset of the day, about 50 members of
Primera Iglesia Bautista in Nashville arrived at the arena two hours
early to take part in the kickoff rally.
“We didn’t want to be late,” pastor Elib Saenz said.
During the ensuing morning rally, Welch and others challenged the
volunteers to give their best efforts to the Lord’s work in the
door-to-door initiative.
Welch urged workers to do “one more” visit when
their teams might start looking at their watches later in the day.
Sure enough, one team told of deciding to go to one
more house. Two teenagers were there. While the volunteers were talking
with them, two other teenagers walked up, and all four made professions
of faith.
Elsewhere in the city, Crossover volunteer Liliana
Lewis from Austin, Texas, was undaunted that no one had embraced Christ
in her visits. She told her team they must knock on one more door,
where they found a young woman with three young children.
Because the mother could not speak English, Lewis presented the gospel
in Spanish, leading the woman and her 7-year-old daughter to faith in
Christ.
James Tisdale from Florence, Texas, approached a man
who was polishing his car. The man looked a little reluctant, Tisdale
said. However, the pastor helped him understand that salvation results
from God’s grace, not man’s good works. “When I asked him if there was
any good reason why he couldn’t pray to receive Christ, he said no,
bowed his head and asked the Lord to save him,” Tisdale recounted.