Southern Baptists Launch Annual Evangelistic Efforts

Statewide evangelistic efforts were launched over the weekend by Southern Baptists months ahead of their annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas.

Bobby Welch, who was recently named Strategist for Global Evangelical Relations, began a six-week initiative to speak nearly 100 times to encourage Southern Baptists to join their annual Crossover outreach effort.

"I am thrilled to be in Texas because we're trying to encourage churches just like this one ... to be a part of Crossover on Saturday, June 9," Welch told members of Parkhills Baptist Church in San Antonio, according to Baptist Press. "I've already told my wife and family we'll be in San Antonio early to be fired up and geared up for that Saturday (June 9). I'm looking forward to doing it again."

Sponsored by the North American Mission Board – the domestic mission agency of the Southern Baptist Convention – Crossover San Antonio is scheduled for June 9 and 10 to reach out to the people of the greater San Antonio/Central Texas area.

Crossover is an annual evangelistic effort by Southern Baptists to spread the Gospel to the people of the host city of their annual meeting.

Last year, more than 800 people made decisions for Christ in Greensboro, N.C., where Crossover Triad 2006 had bikers, horses and rodeo performers preach the Gospel just before 12,000 Southern Baptists gathered for the denomination's meeting.

Welch, the former SBC president who was succeeded by current president Frank Page at the 2006 meeting, told Baptist Press that Southern Baptists everywhere should "come to San Antonio and stand on these roads where sin clouds the vision of lost people from seeing their impending doom."

He had said in a sermon on Easter Sunday that God wanted people who were headed to a Godless eternity to realize that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.

The annual SBC meeting is scheduled for June 12-13.