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ORLANDO, Fla.?A friendly conversation, a story, a realization and a prayer: that’s the gist of what happens when one person shares and another accepts the simple gospel of Jesus Christ. And while the methods and venues may have varied, the scene played out 1,505 times June 7-12 as Southern Baptists expressed their core message of hope through Crossover Orlando.
The effort, held just prior to the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, involved more than 70 local churches and 1,200 outside volunteers. Venues included weeklong Hispanic Crossover and Intentional Community Evangelism (ICE) efforts, as well as a one-day blitz June 12 that included 15 neighborhood block parties, visits to homes, food distribution at five churches, free water bottles for tourists on International Drive and a huge family festival for the Hispanic community at the Central Florida Fairgrounds.
“The best thing summing up the week for me was for people to see Southern Baptists at their best? cooperating with one another at association, state and national levels,” said Mike Armstrong, executive pastor of First Baptist Church of Winter Park and coordinator of Crossover Orlando. “They saw the best of what Southern Baptists truly are, and that is a cooperative people.”
The Hispanic Crossover initiative involved about 18 churches during the week before the convention in street evangelism, home visits, evangelistic services, a Vacation Bible School and an effort to have families invite individuals to their homes to share Christ. A total of 270 professions of faith were reported.
At a two-day soccer clinic at Comunidad Cristiana En Sus Pasos, high school soccer coach Andy Schatz of Marietta, Ga., taught soccer skills with the help of volunteer coaches from the church. The ongoing World Cup competition brought an additional level of interest, as participants were able to watch part of a Mexico vs. South Africa game.
Those attending the clinic also had an opportunity to hear and respond to presentations of the Gospel, and by the end of the second day, 80 had made professions of faith?including 15 parents who participated in a closing ceremony the evening of June 11.
This year’s Intentional Community Evangelism (ICE) initiative had teams sharing Christ June 7-12 in parks, on sidewalks and in neighborhoods near 16 area churches. By the end of the week more than 750 professions of faith had been recorded.
Daylin Rodriguez, a native of Cuba and currently a student at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, told how she and evangelist Darrell Robinson of Spring, Texas, saw a miraculous intervention of God to break up an impending gang fight.
The pair had led a number of people in the area to Christ and the police had broken up a fight while they were there. Shortly afterward the gangs gathered to fight again, Robinson walked right up to the crowd.
“He said, ‘In the name of the Lord come to Jesus,’ and held up the Bible like this” Rodriguez said of Robinson.
“They started just looking at each other and they got into their cars and they left,” she said, adding that it wasn’t as much that they were intimidated by Robinson but just that the gang members had been thrown into a spirit of confusion.
“We kept sharing the gospel, and in less than two hours 18 people had accepted Jesus,” Rodriguez said.
For Mike Tullos and his wife Pam of Fort Worth?scheduled for appointment soon as international missionaries to Serbia?met a woman from Macedonia, a country bordering Serbia.
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