Alabama Baptists were among the more than 1,500 volunteers from out-of-town who joined local Baptists in Chicago as part of a massive evangelism and church-planting effort July 7-8 known as SearchLight.
“This is an opportunity of a lifetime,” said George Rice, a member of Chicago’s chaplaincy police unit. “The city has opened its doors to us, and God’s people are coming together. This is a labor of love.”
One of two Strategic Focus Cities, Chicago is a city Southern Baptists designated as a place where people need the Lord. Block parties, door-to-door evangelism and repairing churches through construction projects were some of the projects volunteers have done throughout the summer.
Teams from Hunter Street Baptist Church, Hoover, and Thomasville Baptist Church, Thomasville, were among the non-Chicago Baptists participating in SearchLight.
Estimates for the day counted more than 5,200 volunteers serving in the four Baptist associations in northeast Illinois: Chicago Metro, Fox Valley, Lake County and Three Rivers. Tom Kleinfeldt, director of SearchLight, said planning for the event began more than two years ago. In June of 1998, both Chicago and Phoenix were designated as Strategic Focus Cities by the North American Mission Board.
While the total fell short of the 100,000 Christians local organizers had initially envisioned, they represented — as one organizer described them — a modern-day Gideon’s Army ready to tell people about God’s love for them.
One way the teams reflected that love was through dozens of evangelistic block parties held throughout the region. At Evening Star Missionary Baptist in Chicago’s West Englewood neighborhood, hundreds came to a block party, one in a series of summer outreach events by the 1,300-member congregation. Evening Star members were joined by nearly 150 members of Second Baptist in Springfield, Mo.
For members of Hunter Street, a 15-hour day of witnessing began when they awoke at 5:15 a.m., before traveling to downtown Chicago.
Once there, they and other volunteers began witnessing at a site named “Festival of Hope,” one of 47 locations set up by Baptists in the Chicago metro area and surrounding counties. There, some volunteers distributed the Book of Hope to people passing by on rollerblades and bicycles, with others handing out Frisbees™ with the gospel message written on the back.
A group of 26 youth from Thomasville Baptist Church participated in a block party at Northside Church in the southside area of Chicago, July 7.
Northside Church averages only seven members in attendance, one of whom is dying of cancer. Close to 75 people showed up at the block party that night.
“One of the amazing things was the way the music spoke to the people who didn’t speak English. Even though we didn’t speak the same language, our music spoke to those people. You could really see it in their faces and the way they were moved,” said Laura Dozier, a sophomore from Thomasville.
Another Thomasville student, Jeremy Overstreet, echoed her comments.
“We saw some Korean ladies and even though they were much older and couldn’t understand our language, they could see we were singing about Jesus. It’s amazing how the Lord moved through our music,” he said.
After throwing the block party at Northside Church, the Thomasville youth participated in street and beach evangelism the next day. The youth helped at a church called The Point in a church-planting effort and also traveled to a baptism service at the city’s Montrose Beach on Lake Michigan.
“We handed out the Book of Hope and shared the gospel on the beach,” said Buff McNickle, Thomasville’s minister of students. “We were rejected a lot but were able to plant some seeds. This is what a majority of missions is. Sometimes you don’t see the results, but you plant the seeds.”
According to McNickle, rejection was the biggest obstacle his youth faced.
“We were from small town Alabama, where most people go to church and are receptive to Jesus. I saw them lose confidence the first day, but they regained that confidence the second day,” McNickle said of his young people’s efforts.
Thomasville members Josh Smith and William Ross were among the youth from the church to engage in street evangelism July 8. They witnessed to the homeless, some with beer cans in a grocery buggy and others fast asleep.
“After they woke up, we talked with them and shared the love of Jesus,” said one of the boys. “We asked one lady, Rosalyn, if she knew who Jesus is. Rosalyn said, ‘He’s the Son of God.’
“We then asked her what it takes to get to heaven, and she said living a good life. I told her to trust Him as Savior, and she was saved.”
Another one of the boys ministered to a man named Antonio.
Following the visit, Antonio agreed to discontinue drinking alcohol and said he would attend The Point that Sunday morning.
McNickle noted that this year he is trying to emphasize that the youth need to be campus missionaries, and he said participating in a trip like SearchLight gave his youth more of a passion and hunger for Christ.
“I want our student ministry to make memories, not regrets,” added McNickle.
Kleinfeldt said SearchLight organizers turned to the media in promoting the event. He said $98,000 was spent on television commercials, with another $100,000 used for radio advertisements. (BP contributed)
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