Brian Gay, minister of missions for First Baptist Church, Montgomery, spent a week in Louisville, Ky., in June.
There with scores of other Alabama Baptists to do missions, he represented his church and New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
“I double-dipped a little bit because it was a missions trip for me and I got class credit for it,” Gay said. But it was much more than that in the end — he got to be part of a team of volunteers who saw 500 people come to Christ.
As part of Crossover Louisville, held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention, the missions experience Gay had was part of a citywide evangelistic push.
More than 1,000 people made professions of faith during the Crossover events, which included block parties, door-to-door witnessing, international festivals and other community efforts.
Also participating in Crossover was First, Montgomery, member John Bush. He and Gay were both involved in the North American Mission Board’s Intentional Community Evangelism ministry.
Bush said he was impressed with the work of the smaller churches.
“I saw churches in the inner city that are giving their all and pouring themselves out, trying to reach people,” Bush said. “They are small churches but they love the people and worked so hard (during Crossover events). They gave everything they had and God honored it. He let them harvest. It was just awesome.”
Gay said the Crossover experience “was pretty incredible.”
“Personally I had the chance to pray with five people who received Christ, and I presented the gospel to more than 20.”
His team focused mainly on street evangelism, he said, noting team members spent some of the time looking specifically for people already on the street.
“We asked God to show us the people who needed to talk,” he said. “Almost always they were on the street ready to talk to somebody. It was really, really good. The best part was they were really genuine. When I walked away (from a person who accepted Christ), I walked away knowing they had truly surrendered their life to Christ.”
Gay said one man who accepted Christ stayed with him for a while and helped share Christ with the next person they encountered.
“That person accepted Christ and they exchanged phone numbers,” Gay said. “They said they would keep each other accountable.”
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