Missouri Baptists see
salvations at Crossover

By Allen Palmeri
Associate Editor
and
Scott Lamb
Contributing Writer

INDIANAPOLIS—James McCullen, pastor, Tabernacle Baptist Church, Piedmont, and a member of the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) Executive Board, came a few days early to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) annual meeting in Indianapolis in order to share the Gospel through the Crossover evangelism ministry.

Crossover is an annual outreach event corresponding with the SBC annual meeting. Southern Baptists from across the nation converge on the host city and work alongside area churches in a number of evangelistic opportunities such as door-to-door visitation, block parties, and servant evangelism.

Missouri Baptists have responded to Crossover year after year by sending volunteers to help at events and by sharing the gospel. McCullen himself has taken part in four Crossover events, and greatly encourages others to plan on being involved at next year’s Crossover in Louisville, Ky.

McCullen went door-to-door in Mooresville, Ind., and also helped at a block party in downtown Indianapolis. Greater Love Baptist Church hosted the event, giving McCullen and others the chance to meet and talk to folks attending. Though he doesn’t know sign language, he even shared the Gospel with a deaf woman who was skilled in reading lips.

While they had the attendees gathered together, McCullen shared the Gospel with good results. He utilized a simple presentation where each of the fingers on one hand represented a point of the Gospel. As McCullen finished, St. Louis Evangelist Jim McNeil gave a Gospel invitation, and nine people made decisions for salvation in Christ.

McCullen appreciates how Crossover gives the messengers to the SBC annual meeting an opportunity for Gospel witness. He said, “Here we’ve got 20,000 people gathered for the meeting, and because of these events we are able to share the Gospel. And this year, the reports are showing that 750 professions of faith were made during Crossover events.”

Meanwhile, Franklin Baptist Association in Union saw 30 decisions for salvation at Crossover as a team of 54 people from six churches labored faithfully in the Gospel.

“That’s pretty exciting,” said Lee Whitley, pastor of Faith Baptist Church, Washington.

The associational team was disappointed at first because a morning block party was rained out. That turned into a time of fellowship with Christian Love Missionary Baptist Church of Indianapolis.

In the afternoon, after a time of praying that threatening rain clouds would pass, the sun appeared over Hawthorne Baptist Church and the salvation decisions were made. Helen Gould, an 80-year-old member of Temple Baptist Church in Sullivan, prayed with 18 of the people who indicated an interest in having Christ as their Savior.

“It was just spectacular that day,” Gould said. “I’m a sower. I’ve always sowed, and that was the first time I’ve ever reaped. It wasn’t me, it was the Lord who used me.”

Whitley said the whole trip was a blessing in terms of bringing churches together.

“I love it because it brings unity of purpose in our association, when we can come together for the common goal to share the love of God with others,” he said.