After a few moments of awkward silence, Jami stepped up to a karaoke microphone to sing in the parking lot of Friendship Baptist Church in Yorba Linda, California.
As she sang, she got emotional. Her father, a former Hell’s Angel, had been incarcerated during her childhood. She shared how God delivered her from a life of pain, heartache and confusion.
“I felt that abandonment, not being enough, dealt with a lot of pain and insecurity from a young age,” she said, then shared that God has healed her and equipped her for ministering to others who have faced tough times.
Jami’s song and testimony were part of Crossover, an annual event that precedes the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting which is being held this year in Anaheim June 14–15. While she and other volunteers shared with a crowd of locals gathered at Friendship Baptist, others were scattered at more than 30 other events around the greater Los Angeles area.
Answered prayer
At two churches, First Southern Baptist Church of Anaheim and First Baptist Church of Cypress, volunteers hosted sports camps for children and teenagers.
Dante Perez said it has long been on his heart to reach the community of FSBC through sports outreach, so this year’s Crossover effort was a perfect fit.
“I’ve been praying for a while for an opportunity like this that would bring families together so they can learn more about Jesus,” Perez said.
Church staff members helped recruit adult and student volunteers from the congregation and from the church’s Anaheim Discovery Christian School to serve. At the camp, 50 or so children and teens enjoyed playing together at three skills-and-drills stations focused on baseball, basketball and soccer.
At a fourth station children heard the gospel through object lessons that included foam dart guns, water balloons and sports analogies.
‘A chance to hear the gospel’
At FBC Cypress, children in attendance did something similar, playing their way through stations with street hockey, basketball, gaga ball and soccer, as well as listening to a Bible study and gospel presentation.
“Every kid has a chance to hear the gospel at least once … but we also have incredible volunteers at every sport who are sharing their testimonies, who are praying with kids,” Pastor Trevor Cooper said.
He said events like the sports camp show the community FEB Cypress is there and ready to serve.
“We’re trying to make an identity for this church through the gospel and through our sports camp, just inviting the community to hear about the gospel and hear the Word, but also to know that we exist here for the community,” he said.
Building relationships
Chris Lohman, pastor of the Garage Church at Huntington Beach, said his church’s Crossover event was aimed at doing the same thing.
“We want to build relationships with our local community,” he said. “We are very relaxed. No one’s judging — everyone in our church has already [made mistakes]. We just want to love on people. Our job is to make it realistic for them to come to a place where they can feel loved and learn about God.”
That’s why Lohman was out on the beach June 11 with four surfboards and a team of volunteers. He wanted to teach people how to surf and maybe get them to a place where they might want to learn about God, too.
“That’s why we do everything we do,” he said.
View photos from Crossover here.
EDITOR’S NOTE — For more stories about the events and meetings surrounding the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting, visit thebaptistpaper.org/sbc2022.
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