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Crusade evangelism reached its heyday in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, when urban arenas and outdoor stadiums would overflow for days and sometimes weeks of preaching by a handful of nationally known evangelists.
John McKay and Joe Simmons witnessed some of those meetings. Some, in fact, they helped organize. And if their prayers are answered, similar successes in smaller cities and venues might constitute the next wave in crusade evangelism.
McKay and Simmons, who worked together for many years on the staff of evangelist James Robison in the 1960s and ’70s and later with Bailey Smith Ministries, have been working with the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention as evangelism consultants since last spring at the behest of SBTC Evangelism Director Don Cass.
Cass, McKay and Simmons are developing a smaller-city crusade concept called “Festival of Hope,” with the first event planned this fall in Cleveland, Texas near Houston. They hope these will be instrumental in evangelizing the varied regions of Texas as part of a larger endeavor, “The Year of Double Harvest,” a challenge that Cass issued to Southern Baptists of Texas Convention churches to double baptisms.
“My heart is for evangelism,” McKay said. “You can turn the television set on and see these young people searching for meaning in life. We have great Bible teaching, we have great conferences, we have great marriage counseling, we have enrichment seminars?all kinds of good things. But evangelism has often taken a backseat in the Southern Baptist Convention. ? The hour is too late for us to not do this.”
Simmons said the SBTC pays McKay’s and his travel expenses for the crusades, but underwriting and organization is handled through local Baptist churches and other evangelical congregations. “We don’t have any financial interest in this,” said Simmons, who retired from a large construction firm and now does consulting for the same commercial contractor.
McKay said he believed the day would come that God “pulled them off the shelf” to use their experience in crusade evangelism to help win the lost.
Though the SBTC is lending its support to the effort, the foremost goal, Simmons said, is to win people to Christ by utilizing all churches that share a burden for lost souls.
“In the case of Cleveland, we also have Methodists and independents, Pentecostals, Assemblies. The comment was made, I think correctly, ‘This isn’t a Baptist thing, this is a Jesus thing.’ That’s really where we want to be. Christ is the answer and the only way to heaven,” Simmons said.
“One of the good things about this is we have the full cooperation of our (Southwestern) seminary behind this thing,” McKay said. “Dr. (Paige) Patterson was just overwhelmingly supportive of this.”
Two teams of students, one of from Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth and another from Southwestern’s Havard theology school in Houston, plan to canvass the Cleveland area the week before the crusade, which is scheduled for Oct. 2-5.
The crusade will feature Ronnie Hill, a 38-year-old evangelist from Haslet who is scheduled to speak to area students on Monday and Tuesday prior to the Tuesday night youth emphasis, Simmons said.
Sunday and Monday will feature the Old Time Gospel Hour Quartet and Tuesday and Wednesday will have more appeal for younger people, including what Simmons described as a “really unusual-type message and presentation” on Wednesday.
“I would love to see these things come about, but they don’t come by the will of man, they come by the will of God,” McKay said.
Simmons said throughout his years of evangelism work that many of the most successful crusades were born in the hearts of ordinary people, not prominent business people or ministers. Those ordinary people would then share their desire with others who began to pray earnestly, Simmons said.
“I would rather go someplace where there are five people who have a heart for God than go somewhere where there are 50 who do not,” he added.
He said Cleveland seems to be conducive to God’s moving among the people.
“We’ve been involved in some unbelievable crusades,” Simmons said. “? But Cleveland, Texas h
