June 26, 2000

Teenagers hit the streets for inner-city evangelism
___By Dan Martin
___Texas Baptist Communications
___DALLAS--Seventeen young people from Fort Worth fanned out in the Cole Street area of midtown Dallas June 16 as part of the Texas Baptist Youth Inner City Evangelism Project.
___They knocked on hundreds of doors but encountered only a handful of people willing to answer. They encountered friendliness and hostility, but their efforts resulted in three

JOHN SHELTON, pastor of Church on the Lot, an inner-city ministry in Dallas, briefs high school students from Glenview Baptist Church in Fort Worth before they go out to do door-to-door evangelism on Cole Street in midtown Dallas. (Photo by Dan Martin)

people making first-time professions of faith in Jesus Christ.
___"They had the experience of planting a lot of seeds in some concrete," said John Shelton, pastor of the Church on the Lot, a ministry to inner-city people in Dallas.
___The youthful door-to-door evangelists from Glenview Baptist Church expended lots of effort but found only a few people home, Shelton reported. "Some of them slammed doors in our faces, and a few threatened to call the police on us."
___The Cole Street area was targeted as a focus of the evangelism project, started four years ago to encourage youth groups to work in the inner-cities of five of the largest metropolitan areas of Texas: Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio and El Paso.
___The project is part of the Texas 2000 emphasis of presenting the gospel of Jesus Christ to every person in the state by the end of this year.
___"Cole Street became a metaphor for every inner-city area of the state when James Semple (director of the State Missions Commission) identified the area as a specific concern during a meeting on the Texas 2000 evangelism emphasis," said Chris Liebrum, who at the time was youth consultant with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___"Who will witness to the people on Cole Street?" became the catchphrase for the entire project, and 'Cole Street' came to represent every inner-city area in the state," Liebrum said.
___For this year's Cole Street project, Shelton worked closely with Jana Young, church and community ministries director with Dallas Baptist Association, and Jason McCash, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church at McKinney and Fitzhugh in the heart of the Cole Street area.
___"Our objective was to knock on as many doors as we could," Shelton said. "The area is a mixture of Anglo and Hispanic and ranges from subsidized housing to half-million-dollar gated communities.
___"We wanted to concentrate on the high end of these communities, which are closed and very difficult to get into. The members of Trinity Baptist Church have been concentrating on the Hispanic communities, and we wanted to target the other group," he added.
___McCash, a student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, has been pastor of the small flock three years. Attendance averaged 12 older adults when he became pastor and now averages 10 to 12, a mix of seniors and young adults.
___In the 1950s and 1960s, the congregation was booming. But it had declined to about

STUDENTS knock on doors during Cole Street evangelism project.

200 by the early 1980s. "It was a slow decline, as the congregation became older and older and not too many young adults were coming in," McCash said.
___The congregation moved from Cole Street several years ago. The large church building, which would seat 900, was sold to an interdenominational congregation that attracts people from across Dallas but "is not doing much in the neighborhood," McCash said.
___Trinity Baptist Church moved to a building on the corner of McKinney and Fitzhugh which had been an auto detailing shop. "Our sanctuary is where the garage was," the pastor explained.
___McCash, who was called to be pastor of the church while he was a student at Dallas Baptist University, said the small size and difficult area "at times gets depressing."
___"But we are trying to do our job and to be a witness in this community. We are striving for kingdom growth, not just church growth. We are making believers and disciples, and that is our job."
___The help from the youth group was "a godsend," he said. "My wife and I do most of the outreach, and it is hard for us to do a great deal because I go to school and she has another job.
___"This was an answered prayer. There was no way we could have done as much as they did. This is a real hard neighborhood to get in, ... meet people. We have tried a little bit of everything we can think of."
___The workers had planned to have a block party at a park near the church Saturday afternoon, but the weather did not cooperate. Rain washed out the party and left the workers with about 200 hot dogs.
___"We went straight to South Dallas and served more than 150 people," Shelton said, adding that it was pouring rain but homeless people are homeless whether it rains or shines.
___"We went to a big heroin district and gave them hot dogs, chips and soft drinks out of the back of the van. They just kept coming, and we were able to witness to them. We had 23 say they wanted to accept Jesus as their personal savior," he added.
___

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