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Editor’s note: The Reach Texas Week of Prayer is Sept. 18-25. This week, the Texan will highlight brief stories of how God is using the Reach Texas offering to impact the kingdom across Texas.
HOUSTON—Since its first service last fall, Cross Community Church in Houston has aimed to take the gospel to the doorsteps of every household within its reach.
God is blessing those efforts. Cross Community, a church plant sent out of Northeast Houston Baptist Church, has baptized 16 people since its first service on Sept. 12, 2021, according to its pastor, Del Traffanstedt. Seventy-five percent of those baptisms are directly related to the church’s door-to-door outreach.
Shortly after opening its doors, Cross Community executed a six-week push to reach every home within a three-mile radius of its church campus. Through that effort, someone at each of those homes received a gospel tract or had a face-to-face gospel conversation. Traffanstedt said money given through
Reach Texas is used to buy tracts and other materials used in Cross Community’s outreach efforts such as these.
“It is a vital component of our funding,” Traffanstedt said. “Without the faithful giving of SBTC churches, it would be much harder to do what we do. We are thankful for those who pray, give, and go.”
In addition to door-to-door outreach, Cross Community has worked to cultivate partnerships within the community to build a bridge to the gospel. The church provides needed school supplies through a partnership with a local elementary school and recently began an English as a Second Language program to minister to one of the most diverse areas in the U.S.
“It is crazy to think that God took me from Odessa to Houston in seven short months to plant Cross Community Church,” Traffanstedt said. “God’s hand has been on every part of the process from the call to plant, to confirmation, to assessment, to gathering a core team, to launch, to the baptisms and growth we have seen. We are excited to see what God is going to do next.”
