June 19, 2000
Crossover Orlando gives international twist to witness
___By James Dotson
___North American Mission Board
___ORLANDO, Fla. (BP)--Some people heard the gospel of Jesus Christ through a massive International Festival at the Central Florida Fairgrounds, while others heard it over hot dogs and chips at neighborhood block parties. Many heard it on doorsteps and in living rooms, while still others responded during late-night encounters on city streets.
___Southern Baptists engaged in a variety of methods of meeting their evangelistic missionduring Crossover Orlando 2000, a faith-sharing emphasis held before and during the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting June 13-14.
JULIE HEIGHT (right) of Park Avenue Baptist Church in Titusville, Fla., and other teens sing during a worship concert played by the Sonic Temple Band June 10 on the streets of downtown Orlando. The concert was part of a Crossover block party. (BP photo by Bob Carey)
___Much of the effort focused on "planting seeds" of awareness and conviction among people, building relationships that would lead to later evangelistic opportunities. Nonetheless, at least 1,153 individual commitments to a life-changing faith in Jesus Christ were recorded.
___Thirteen Texas Baptists participated in this year's Crossover, according to a list released by the SBC North American Mission Board, which coordinates the event.
___"Overall, I would rate the entire effort somewhere between outstanding and phenomenal," said James Fortinberry, executive director of Greater Orlando Baptist Association. "The cooperation we had with our local churches--and especially with the language churches--and the people that came to help us was unusually good."
___Crossover has been a fixture of Southern Baptist Convention annual meetings since 1989. NAMB President Bob Reccord said the emphasis extends beyond "strategies, organization and focus" that characterize most convention meetings.
___Crossover is the part of each convention that says, "How can we give ourselves away to the city to which we've come?" Reccord said.
___Much of the giving came on Saturday, June 10, during the citywide International Festival that attracted 3,500-4,000 participants.
___Held under the livestock pavilion at the Central Florida Fairgrounds, the festival included representatives of Haitian, Brazilian, Hispanic, Korean and Vietnamese groups. Participants sampled food from each of the groups and allowed their children to take part in games and activities, including five "moon walk" attractions.
___Crossover volunteers also presented the gospel message to participants, and more than 200 of them committed their lives to Christ. The long-term benefit, however, came through the relationships that were formed and the names that have been forwarded to the various language groups for follow-up by local churches.
___Jason Kim, a NAMB staff member and one of the festival coordinators, said pastors often have difficulty locating members of particular ethnic groups who could be reached by their congregations.
___Greater Orlando Baptist Association hopes to start 18 churches through the overall Crossover effort.
___The block parties sponsored by area churches followed a theme similar to the International Festival, offering entertainment, food and drink to guests as a way of building relationships and sharing the story of Christ.
___Cecil Seagle, director of the Florida Baptist Convention's missions division, described the philosophy of churches while he was attending a block party adjacent to Downtown Baptist Church in Orlando. The immediate goal, he said, is for individuals to respond to the gospel. But positive long-term contacts also are important.
___"We need to leave them in such wonderful condition that when someone comes along and shares Christ with them later ... they would respond and say yes somewhere along the way. It's a principle of Jesus--some cultivate, some plant, some water and some get in on the harvest."
___Elsewhere, volunteers worked with about 12 churches conducting door-to-door visits, usually utilizing spiritual opinion surveys. It was the culmination of a four-week effort for many of the churches and part of a long-term statewide initiative known as "Through Every Door."
___In one instance, more than 60 volunteers had contacted 710 homes in preparation for a new church. They identified 43 prospects while recording 13 professions of faith in Christ and conducting 135 surveys.
___Another group of specially trained volunteers worked with King's Way Baptist Church in sharing the gospel with residents in several low-income neighborhoods.
___The inner-city evangelism team typically conducts training conferences and leads hundreds of individuals to Christ in cities across the country, directly asking people they meet on the streets or on doorsteps about their spiritual condition. The group reported nearly 400 professions of faith in their first two days.
___Shari Schubert & Lee Weeks contributed to this article.
___
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