By David Dawson
ddawson@tnbaptist.org
The worship team sings a closing song at the outdoor service hosted by First Baptist Church, Portland, at Richland Park Amphitheater.
NASHVILLE — Fitting for an event held in Music City, this year’s installment of Crossover had less knocking, but more rocking.
Instead of focusing exclusively on door-to-door outreach, Crossover Nashville featured a wide variety of large-group gatherings, with churches in Middle Tennessee hosting block parties, concerts, outdoor worship services, ice cream socials, family movie nights and other events.
“We are excited about what took place this week,” said Mark Miller, baptism/discipleship team leader and Sunday School specialist for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board. “We are so thankful for the churches who participated, and we were glad that Middle Tennessee was saturated with gospel conservations.”
Miller said the final numbers from the week had not yet been tabulated, but said the early returns from Crossover Nashville showed more than 100 professions of faith and 150 additional decisions. It is estimated that more than 3,300 gospel conversations took place.
Kim Rice is baptized by Tim Colovos, pastor of First Baptist Church, Portland, at the end of an outdoor service on June13.
While some churches shared the gospel through traditional visitation — the standard method of Crossover outreach — many churches found other ways to participate in the annual event.
First Baptist Church, Portland, hosted an outdoor worship service on June 13 (the day before the SBC annual meeting) at Richland Park Amphitheater.
The service included praise and worship music, followed by an evangelistic-themed message from guest pastor Steve Ayers, from Hillvue Heights Church in Bowling Green, Ky. The service concluded with eight baptisms that took place in a portable baptistery pool beside the large stage.
Tim Colovos, pastor of FBC Portland, said he and his staff considered having a Crossover event on Saturday, but said many of his members would be traveling that day and would likely have a scheduling conflict.
“I just felt like the best way to really get the church (involved) was during a Sunday morning service,” he said. “And we knew we wouldn’t able to house everybody inside the walls of our church. So, we just thought, ‘what better way is there to worship than to come out and enjoy God’s great creation?’ And the Lord really blessed.”
Attendees at the service gathered under pop-up tents — and the biggest shade trees they could find — on a scorching hot Sunday that featured temperatures in the low 90s. Undaunted by the heat, many of the attendees stood, with hands raised, during the times of praise and worship.
Most of the attendees then gathered around the baptistery pool to cheer and celebrate with the new believers.
“What’s really important to me about (this service) is not only did we have these baptisms, but they were saved first,” said Colovos. “We wanted to make sure they had a firm understanding of who the Lord is, and a good grasp of what sin is, and that it’s because of our sin that we need a Savior. And today, they simply confessed their sins and professed Christ as Lord.”
Crossover has been a yearly event for roughly three decades — taking place in the days leading up to the SBC’s annual meeting — but the event was not held last year, when the SBC’s annual meeting (scheduled for Orlando) was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year, training sessions for Crossover were held at various sites over the past several weeks. Many churches made arrangements to host community-wide events that appealed to all age groups.
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Kenwood Baptist Church held a variety of events as part of Crossover Nashville.
Churches were then asked to designate June 12-13 as Crossover Weekend, and pastors were encouraged to preach an evangelistic message and give an evangelistic invitation.
Numerous churches participated by hosting “Who’s Your One” rallies during the week and incorporating that theme into their Sunday worship services.
Also, all six Southern Baptist seminaries were invited to send seminary students for a week-long evangelism seminar that included morning training sessions and door-to-door gospel sharing.
Approximately 100 students came to Nashville to participate, and several Nashville-area churches “adopted” the students to help reach their communities.
Also, as part of Crossover, NAMB provided the Send Relief Medical teams — providing free medical and dental checkups — on the Judson Baptist Church campus.
All told, there were more than 6,000 participants in this year’s Crossover, representing 43 churches across Middle Tennessee.
Miller said their efforts had an eternal impact: “Lives were changed this week,” he said. B&R
