The national campaign, sponsored by the North American Mission Board and the Southern Baptist Convention comes just before the denomination's annual meeting in Greensboro, N.C., June 13-14. Although nearly 200 churches and missions cover the three-city area - Piedmont Triad - Southern Baptists are making an intensive effort to spread the Gospel to the more than 200,000 persons that have no church relationship, said Don Smith, national coordinator for Crossover, according to Baptist Press. About half of the state population of eight million people remained unreached.
More than 11,000 volunteers from across the nation participated in Crossover 2005 in Nashville. The number of decisions for Christ passed 3,000 by the end of July. In the upcoming month, the Triad campaign will include witnessing on college campuses, sports clinics, block parties, door-to-door witnessing, and random acts of kindness called "Kindness Explosion." Volunteers also plan to plant 19 new churches in the area this year.
Nearly 37,000 persons have accepted Christ and dozens of new Baptist churches have been planted since Crossover was launched in 1989.Training begins this week at local churches throughout North Carolina with out of town volunteers scheduled to be geared during the first full week of June.
Following days after the evangelism effort, the annual SBC meeting will build from the campaign momentum and place its emphasis on witnessing, winning and baptising, as SBC President Bobby Welch told Baptist Press. Southern Baptists will gather around the theme "Everyone Can" with a challenge to baptise one million people in one year, which ends in September.
The 2006 meeting will also see the election of a new Southern Baptist head. The nomination of Ronnie Floyd, pastor of First Baptist Church in Springdale, Ark., for a one-year term as president of the denomination was announced Monday.
[Editor's Note: Audrey Barrick reported from Washington DC, USA for this article]
Audrey Barrick
Christian Today Correspondent
