When Leo Lytle pulls off the side of the road, he does not knock on doors, deliver a sermon or brandish a Bible.
He simply waits.
Attached to his van is a 16-foot trailer filled with 2,000 hand-made wooden crosses, each inscribed with “Jesus is Lord.” A sign on the back reads: “FREE CROSSES. CALL: I’LL PULL OVER,” along with his phone number. The calls come quickly and almost every time, a conversation follows.
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“It just starts with a conversation,” said Lytle, 71, a Texas-based pastor who has spent eight years crisscrossing the country through Cross Ministry. “I’m not knocking on doors. They’re coming to me.”
It’s a simple approach, one that has worked on just about every road in America and led, by Lytle’s estimation, to more than 6,000 gospel conversations.
‘It’s a woodworking message’
Lytle grew up in a woodworking shop in Shreveport, Louisiana, his hometown, learning the trade as a little boy. He worked at a large millwork operation in New Orleans as the sash and doorman, building doors and windows while completing his degree from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
He later pastored Baptist churches for 33 years, mostly in Louisiana and Texas, teaching “Evangelism Explosion (EE),” an internationally recognized gospel-training program.
Eight years ago, he felt called to go into full-time evangelism and take the message to the road.
“My intent was to have a message that would give me opportunities to preach across America,” he said. “The message I preach is called ‘The Door.’ It’s a woodworking message.”
Then the idea for free crosses came by accident.
A fellow pastor began making wooden crosses and suggested Lytle give them to churches. The venture worked, sort of — congregations were unsure what to do with the crosses and the effort stalled.
Then strangers began stopping Lytle at gas stations and roadsides, drawn by the crosses loaded in the trailer.
“People began to stop me along the road, and I realized, this could be a tool that will work,” Lytle recalled.
In June 2018, on a trip to South Dakota with roughly 900 crosses in tow, Lytle pulled into an old parking lot and waited. Two women stopped. Neither knew the Lord. Lytle was able to share the gospel with both. “That’s when the light-bulb moment happened for me,” he said.
One question, no pressure
Lytle’s method is intentionally unhurried. When someone stops for a cross, he asks a “diagnostic question” borrowed from his EE training: Have you come to the place in your life where for certain, if you died today, you would go to heaven?
If doubt flashes in their eyes, he makes a gentle offer: “If you’d like to hear how you can be sure, I’d love to share it with you — but that’s your call. No pressure.” The conversation takes about four minutes and most of the time, people say yes.
People who stop are as varied as the roads he travels — atheists, agnostics, pagans, witches, Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Sikhs. But he doesn’t seek arguments.
“I don’t believe in beating anybody over the head with the gospel. If they don’t want to hear it, they don’t talk about it,” Lytle explained. “I believe anything I can talk somebody into, somebody else can talk them out of it. So we’re not interested in winning an argument.”
By his estimate, about one in 10 people who call or stop by either do not know if they are going to go to heaven or are genuinely unsure about it.
On a recent day in Kosciusko, Mississippi, 21 people made professions of faith. Lytle then received three more calls on his way to Tennessee, he said. “It was one of those wonderful days,” said Lytle.
One encounter stands out: A man who was suicidal and desperately searching for a sign literally saw Lytle’s roadside sign, stopped and gave his life to Christ.
Simple enough for anyone
The crosses are made by volunteers — retirees across the country called “Cross Men” and “Cross Women.” Lytle’s friend Vic Bass organized a team, who started making them in great quantities over the last 10 years. They’ve made tens of thousands of them.
Lytle’s wife, Valerie, a former journalist and labor and delivery nurse, also evangelizes on the road with Leo. They co-authored a book, “CROSS-ing America: Sharing Jesus Across the Nation,” which includes a practical chapter on how to share the gospel.
“The whole book is a tool,” said Lytle, adding the book can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles or from the publisher, Northeastern Baptist Press.
For believers hesitant to evangelize, Roc Collins, evangelism team leader for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, says Lytle’s example dismantles the most common excuse.
“This brother is showing us the simplicity of sharing the gospel, and it really is a simple message that Jesus loves all people, and he died for all people and desires a relationship,” said Collins.
“If you are worried that somebody’s going to ask you a question you can’t answer, I want to alleviate your fears, yes, that’s going to happen. But tell them what you do know: Jesus loves you. He died for your sins. He rose from the dead, and he wants a relationship with you.”
Starting point
Lytle suggests churches and individuals can start small, using a keychain, a card, a pen, or anything free that opens a door.
“Don’t let them rattle you,” he said. “Everybody knows John 3:16. That’s enough to start.”
In the meantime, Lytle will keep pulling over as long as people keep calling.
“People are calling me every day — wherever I’m going, they want a free cross,” Lytle said. “And I’ll pull over.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Zoë Watkins and originally published by the Baptist and Reflector.
