I want to be one of those 10,000.” The words bounded forth in Ron Bingaman’s spirit when he heard Alabama native Bobby Welch envision an influx of volunteers for evangelism prior to the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) annual meeting in Nashville.
Bingaman, a California church staff member, heard Welch set the goal soon after his election as SBC president in Indianapolis at the 2004 SBC annual meeting.
Then Bingaman, 60, set a goal: He would run in the Big Sur Marathon to raise funds for anyone from his church who would join him June 18 among the thousands who will fan out across Nashville and the surrounding area to share the gospel.
Bingaman raised nearly $5,000 for 17 people who will travel with him from Immanuel Baptist Church, Highland, Calif., for the Crossover Nashville evangelistic outreach preceding the June 21-22 SBC sessions.
The annual Crossover, now with more than 12,000 volunteers registered, has additional significance this year as part of the “Everyone Can Kingdom Challenge,” the initiative Welch has launched to call Southern Baptist churches to baptize 1 million people in a year.
“I can only imagine what God is going to do because of the fact that we’ve been challenged to do something that only God is going to get the credit for,” Bingaman said of the Crossover effort that will begin at 8 a.m. June 18 in Nashville’s Gaylord Entertainment Center.
Bingaman recorded a 4-hour-and-23-second finish in the race. He has been a staff member at the church since 1982 in various evangelism-related roles.
His current title at Immanuel is minister of FAITH, the Sunday School-based evangelism strategy widely used in Southern Baptist churches, which Welch initially launched at First Baptist Church, Daytona Beach, Fla.
“FAITH gives you a dynamic that keeps you actively involved in sharing your faith.”
“(FAITH) keeps you in that battle, consciously thinking about souls all the time. When you’re not, you just get caught up with a lot of good things … but they’re not the great thing that God calls us to do in the Great Commission.”
(BP)
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