Reporting on Crossover Nashville evangelistic events conducted prior to the 2021 Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting, Johnny Hunt, senior vice president of evangelism and leadership for the North American Mission Board, said 176 people made salvation decisions, and volunteers engaged in 6,300 gospel conversations.
Crossover Nashville included neighborhood festivals, block parties, ice cream socials, food distribution, knocking on doors and other creative means to share the gospel message.
Seminary students, local church volunteers and annual meeting attendees participated in the evangelistic outreach.
Roc Collins, director of evangelism for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, expressed appreciation for the hundreds of Southern Baptists involved in the evangelistic outreach.
He described Tennessee as a state that is approaching seven million residents, with as many as four million nonbelievers among those residents. He stated that his prayer is that the evangelistic fervor evident in Crossover Nashville will “overflow across the SBC.”
Student evangelism
In further comments, Hunt expressed enthusiasm for NAMB’s strategic involvement in reaching college and university students with the gospel. Although a recommendation presented earlier that morning (June 15) by the Executive Committee to add the student evangelism ministry assignment to NAMB’s official duties did not pass, Hunt stated that NAMB is investing $5 million in student evangelism over the next four years.
Surveys have indicated that every generation is less likely to attend church than their parents did, and 47% of this particular generation believe evangelism is morally wrong, Hunt said.
“College campuses are strategic mission fields,” he said, with only 5% of students reached with the gospel. During the Send Conference, conducted prior to the SBC annual meeting in Nashville, 20 students made professions of faith, Hunt reported.
Who’s Your One?
Hunt also reported on the status of the Who’s Your One evangelistic strategy, launched in February 2019. The emphasis is designed to help pastors and their congregations begin praying for and reaching out to at least one person they know who needs to respond to the gospel.
At the 2019 SBC annual meeting in Birmingham, the most recent time that Southern Baptists collectively have met in person, 3,000 people in attendance committed to participate in the emphasis.
After 27 Who’s Your One? tours have been hosted across the country, nearly 40,000 Southern Baptists have committed to “praying and sharing Christ. They have heeded the call to lead their one to Christ,” Hunt said.
“Have you identified your one? If not, you can begin today.”
Hunt closed by calling on pastors to “lead out … in evangelism. Join me in doing just that.”
