Sports, block parties & festival draw thousands for Pensacola Crossover

Nov 9, 2009
EVA LIGHTSEY, BARBARA DENMAN & MARGARET DEMPSEY-COLSON
Florida Baptist Witness & Florida Baptist Convention

Related Coverage:

2009 FBSC Annual Meeting, Pensacola

NBA and WNBA all-star clinician Frank Lopez leads children in a drill Nov. 7 at Highland Terrace Park in Pensacola as part of Crossover Pensacola, an evangelistic effort in advance of the Florida Baptist State Convention. Photo by Joni B. Hannigan

PENSACOLA (FBW/FBC)—Pensacola Bay Baptists reached out to thousands in 16 neighborhoods in the greater Pensacola area Nov. 7 during Crossover, an evangelistic effort preceding the Florida Baptist State Convention annual meeting Nov. 9-10.

Sports outreach clinics, block parties, food distribution, and a Hispanic festival drew nearly 5,500 participants where the Gospel was presented nearly 1,400 times Saturday with 160 professions of faith recorded as of Nov. 8, according to the Florida Baptist Convention who worked in partnership with the Pensacola Bay Baptist Association and area churches to support the effort.

Crossover efforts also will extend into Nov. 9-10 at four sites where the homeless will be fed by through the efforts of local volunteers working in cooperation with Florida Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers and at Perdido Bay Baptist Church where the Mobile Dental Unit, a ministry of the Florida Baptist Convention supported by the Maguire State Mission Offering, is ministering to the community.

SPORTS EVANGELISM

Matt Cotten, minister of education at Pine Terrace Baptist Church in Milton, prays with a neighborhood visitor at a block party at Diego Park Nov. 7 during Crossover Pensacola. Behind them is a “God-mobile” the church has used to travel to fairs and other events to answer people’s spiritual questions and pray with them. Joni B. Hannigan

“One, two, three,” said NBA and WNBA all-star clinician Frank Lopez, trying to get the attention of several dozen kids clapping in time. ““One, two, three.” Clap, clap, clap. ““One, two, three.” Clap, clap, clap.

Amid drills for chest passes and free throws, Lopez also taught teamwork, respect, and exhibited the virtue of patience. Never raising his voice in frustration, Lopez called for the children’s eyes and ears, taking away a ball that a group of boys was hogging while wrangling another group into line.

Dave McClamma, associate pastor at First Baptist Church at the Mall in Lakeland, helped direct volunteers and children at Highland Terrace Park, working with Lopez to create order out of chaos.

“It’s a great opportunity for kids to come and to learn some basketball skills but at the same time reach out with the Gospel,” McClamma said. “This particular clinic will give these kids a lot of new hope and really see a purpose for life—that they can make something of themselves.”

East Brent Baptist Church in Pensacola provided the majority of volunteers to help with the more than 54 children who came.

With a smile, 16-year-old Josh Jangko tugged at a small boy hanging from his neck. He said many of the kids don’t want him to put them down. Jangko admitted his mother volunteered him to work as an assistant coach. She woke him early Saturday and told him he needed to go play basketball with some kids, he laughed.

“It’s a great experience for me to be able to hang out with little kids and hold them and be able to serve the Lord,” Jangko said.

The basketball clinic was combined with a Crossover Feed the Children event. Handing out boxes of food and cleaning supplies was to follow the clinic, but people were lined up down the block when volunteers arrived, said David Burton, director of evangelism for the Florida Baptist Convention.

Feed the Children served nearly 840 people, with the help of volunteers from East Brent and other local churches and the association.

People who asked were given a large box of food that is supposed to supplement a family for a week, along with a box of cleaning supplies and an additional box of personal supplies.

Between the basketball clinic and the food distribution, 41 people made professions of faith at Highland Terrace Park.

University of West Florida baseball players led a baseball clinic Nov. 7 on campus as part of Crossover in Pensacola prior to the Florida Baptist State Convention annual meeting Nov. 9-10. Of 150 participants, 36 made professions of faith. Michael Duncan/Florida Baptist Convention

There’s more to Ty Sullivan, the University of West Florida baseball pitcher, than what is out on the diamond, he told young boys at a baseball clinic. Much more.

“I am not defined by baseball,” said Sullivan, a Valrico native. “Jesus defines me.”

Minutes earlier, grouped by age and gender, young boys raced through the baseball clinic on UWF’s baseball field as part of Crossover.

They honed their skills of hitting, pitching and playing infield and outfield through baseball drills, led by 40 UWF players.

On the bleachers, they listened to Sullivan and a fellow player share testimonies and heard a Gospel presentation from John Zeller, co-director of SCORE, Sharing Christ Our Redeemer Enterprises.

“Baseball can do a lot of things for you, but baseball cannot get you into heaven,” Zeller said.

About 150 attended the event with 36 individuals, including clinic participants, UWF players, parents and grandparents, indicating they made professions of faith, and another 111 expressing interest in follow-up from a local church.

“This is the church outside of the building, the church at its best,” said Jeff Hessinger, Florida Baptists’ director of personal evangelism.

FEEDING THE HUNGRY

Volunteers from East Brent Baptist Church joined with other local churches and the Pensacola Bay Baptist Association and the Florida Baptist Convention to distribute food boxes from Feed the Hungry ministry to area families around Highland Terrace Park in Pensacola Nov. 7 as part of Crossover Pensacola. Joni B. Hannigan

Ten rural churches in Northern Escambia County worked cooperatively to distribute Feed The Children Boxes to 400 needy families in their community.

Rather than ask residents to come to one central location, church members embraced the Great Commission as they delivered the boxes of food to homes, said Gary Wieborg, pastor of First Baptist Church in Bratt.

“Going into all the world means going to them rather than asking them to come to us,” Wieborg said

By “working together cooperatively rather than competitively,” the churches can make a bigger impact on the community as a whole, he said.

Communities surrounding the town of Century are among the poorest in the county, the pastor said, as residents suffer from generational poverty and current economic difficulties.

Church leaders contacted local schools to determine where the needs are, he said, but also looked within their congregations to find hurting families.

“If we are doing our jobs, we should have hurting families in our churches.”

The food delivery resulted in 169 gospel presentations, 18 professions of faith faiths and 37 new prospects for follow up, Wieborg said.

BLOCK PARTIES

Sailors from the U.S. Navy base across the bridge at Naval Air Station Pensacola enjoy the fun at a block party sponsored by Warrington Baptist Church as part of Crossover Pensacola Nov. 7 at Navy Point Park. Joni B. Hannigan

As a means of getting outside the walls of the church to embrace Acts 1:8, First Baptist Church in Cottage Hill sponsored a block party at the Wild Oak Farms apartment complex located on Highway 29 in Cantonment.

Prior to the block party, church members visited each of the 133 apartments to invite residents to the festivities which included hot dogs, pizzas, a moon walk and games.

After throwing the football with neighborhood children, Pastor Mark Torrez gathered the group together to illustrate the plan of salvation using a giant EvangeCube. At the conclusion, about half dozen children raised their hands to indicate they had asked Jesus to be their Savior.

The effort was one way in which the congregation had begun to “engage our community through planned evangelistic outreach,” he said. “Unless they actually see it in tangible ways, they aren’t going to understand Acts 1:8.”

In the midst of a carnival-type atmosphere of live music, floating balloons, and the ever-present orange faith stickers, children and adults scattered across playground equipment, bounce houses, and a basketball court for a lively block party at Diego Park.

Dozens stood in line for hamburgers, hot dogs and soda at one end of the park, while a God- mobile with the tantalizing question “Are you going to Heaven?” drew them to the other end.

While the hamburgers fed physical needs, volunteers in the “God mobile” used EvangeCubes, quizzes, and tracts to address spiritual needs.

John Cross (left), president of the Florida Baptist State Convention, shares with young men at the Hispanic Festival at Max Dickson Park in Pensacola as part of Crossover Pensacola Nov. 7. Cross, pastor of South Biscayne Church in Northport, visited several sites with his wife, Dawn, during the day’s events. Joni B. Hannigan

The block party was a cooperative effort between Pine Terrace Baptist Church in Milton, their church plant Living Truth Church in Pensacola, and New World Believers’ Ministries in Pensacola.

New World is a new addition to the Florida Baptist Convention, and pastor Rodney Jones said he couldn’t be happier.

Excited about the outreach opportunity the block party offered, Jones said his heart is to minister to the people in the neighborhood where he grew up. A former drug dealer and mugger who has been imprisoned three times, Jones said many in the community are in the same condition he used to be in.

During the block party, in lieu of traditional preaching, Jones rapped his testimony to tell how God can change lives.

Coordinating with other Florida Baptists has enabled him to reach out even more, Jones said.

“I want to be a part of this brotherhood who have a heart for God,” Jones said. “It’s just a blessing to be a part of this and to be a part of the convention. This is all new to me and it’s so exciting to be a part of Kingdom work.”

Mike Wiggins, pastor of Pine Terrace, said he was pleased be a part of the work.

“We’re here to just try to help [Jones] reach these people for Christ,” Wiggins said.

It was the first time Wiggins’ church has participated in a block party and he hopes to begin to have such events in Milton.

The aroma of fried fish and grits lured more than 200 residents living in the shadows of Greater First Baptist Church in Cantonment to a block party sponsored by the host church and nearby Heritage Baptist Church.

The cooperation of the two congregations—one African American and the other Anglo—to reach the community is an example to all churches, said Elizabeth Forrest, an evangelist from Greater First.

“There is not a heaven for blacks and a heaven for whites. We need to learn here on earth how we can work together to address the needs in our community,” Forrest said.

The neighborhood has been hurt by the recession, Forrest said, calling the economic crisis, “the great equalizer. It has affected both the affluent and the blue collar worker. Now we need to come together. The harvest is ripe and the laborers are few.”

Within sight of Warrington Baptist Church steeple rising above the trees and blue water of the Bayou Grande, church members manned their stations at Navy Point park prepared to make sno-cones, popcorn, and cotton candy, hand out hamburgers and hotdogs, paint faces, or monitor bounce house.

Children at Diego Park for a Crossover block party Nov. 7 took part in a variety of fun and games to let them know people from the area churches care about them. The boy in the bounce house is holding an orange Gideon’s New Testament distributed at the block party by Gideon’s who are members of Pine Terrace Baptist Church in Milton. Joni B. Hannigan

To further their impact on the community, volunteers were also geared to offer a free pancake breakfast Sunday morning.

For the people at Warrington, this Crossover event is a natural outflow of what they do regularly, said Pastor Larry White.

At least once a month the church tries to find a way to actively reach people in the community by getting outside the church doors. Along with several other area churches, they’ve had block parties and food and gas giveaways.

They try not to be pushy, White said.

“We say who we are, who we represent –Jesus – and do it in Jesus’ name,” White said.

At a block party at Treasure Hills Park one woman made a confession to Linda Banta, a member of Innerarity Baptist Church.

“I thought I was dying,” said the woman, enjoying with her young son and husband, the days’ sunny skies while live Christian music played in the background. Banta learned the woman had just returned home from the emergency room where she had been treated for inexplicable seizures.

Bob Greene (left), director of missions for the Pensacola Bay Baptist Association, and Bill Faulkner, director of missions for the Greater Orlando Baptist Association, talk about the block party at Diego Park Nov. 7 with Rodney Jones, pastor of New World Believers’ Ministries in Pensacola. Orlando is site of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Crossover effort in June. Joni B. Hannigan

Banta, women’s ministry director at Innerarity, gently asked the woman if she knew where she would spend eternity if she were to die and shared the Gospel with her. The woman made a profession of faith and her husband rededicated his life to Christ.

“God is so good,” smiled Banta.

At a block party for Beulah Baptist Church, one couple remembers it wasn’t long ago they were praying God would lead them to the church where they should serve Him.

“It was an immediate answer to prayer,” said Crystal Seay, admitting she had never experienced such an instant answer.

She and her husband Bill had gone to eat lunch at a chain restaurant. Before eating, the Christian couple prayed for a church and while browsing in the restaurant’s gift shop they met Debbie Loubriel, a restaurant employee and pastor’s wife at Beulah Baptist Church.

In easy conversation, she invited them to church. They enthusiastically accepted her invitation, believing it to be an answer to their prayer.

A month later, they were with their new-found friends at Beulah Baptist, helping host a block party for their community.

HISPANIC FESTIVAL

Men from a Hispanic church in Pensacola provide music during the Hispanic Festival as part of Crossover Pensacola Nov. 7. Michael Duncan/Florida Baptist Convention

Spanning Max Dickson Park, the Hispanic Festival combined with a Feed the Children distribution site to encompass everything from live music and door prizes to food and clothes donations, arts and crafts booths and basketball.

The event provided an opportunity for churches to work together and to strengthen their presence in the community, said Misael Castillo. Castillo works for Florida Baptist Convention’s Church and Community Ministries.

Manuel Lamb, pastor of Iglesia Bautista Roca De Salvacion in Pensacola, agreed.

Through an interpreter, Lamb expressed his excitement over the communion of believers from a number of different churches at the event and said that by getting to know each other better they were building a stronger church.

When the community sees churches work together, the community prospers, Lamb said.

Student volunteers from Bradfordville First Baptist Church in Tallahassee manned arts and crafts booths, painted faces and nails and helped children make bracelets while the student praise team from Pine Summit Baptist Church in Pensacola coordinated with a worship team from Roca de Salvacion’s to provide live music.

Lindsey McQuaig, a seventeen-year-old student from Bradfordville First Baptist Church in Tallahassee, helps three-year-old Ivis pick out beads for a bracelet to make at a crafts booth during the Hispanic Festival in Pensacola Nov. 7 during Crossover. Eva Lightsey

“Just being able to be involved in world missions here in our own city and getting our students mobilized and get a taste for it is awesome,” said Jeremy Lewis, Pine Summit’s youth pastor.

There were drawings for free food baskets, and anyone who wanted boxes provided by Feed the Children could pick them up. A table of donated clothes stood by the side.

Dulce Matrias, a 17-year-old member of Roca de Salvacion helped man the prize table with several of her friends. She moved from Honduras with her family a year ago and has enjoyed Roca de Salvacion’s welcoming spirit for the three months she has attended.

“I went to the church and they said they needed someone to help and I said I could help,” Matrias said.

Florida Baptist Disaster Relief volunteers from various churched worked with members of Roca de Salvacion to hand out hamburgers and hot dogs and traditional Latin food like arroyos con pollo and black beans and rice.

Anne Nichols, a Disaster Relief volunteer and a member of Pine Summit, said her church is trying to connect with the existing Hispanic ministry in the area.

“I feel this is what God wants us to do,” Nichols said. “To be in the community.”

Another Disaster Relief volunteer came from First Baptist Church of Bascom. A former International Mission Board missionary to Mexico, Melba Cook said she was able to pray with several people who are separated from their families and to share the Gospel in Spanish and English.

Cook met a 21-year-old woman with whom she used an evangelistic tract to share the Gospel and celebrated as the woman readily made a profession of faith.

Anne Nichols, a member from Pine Summit Baptist Church in Pensacola serves hamburgers and hot dogs with other Disaster Relief volunteers at the Hispanic Festival in Pensacola Nov. 7 during Crossover. Eva Lightsey

Cook’s daughter, Sheila Stitt, a member of Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, also a Disaster Relief volunteer, and granddaughter Chloe helped at the event.

Stitt said her husband lost his job in January. Although he found another job in August, she said they remember what it was like and wanted to share the hope they have in Christ as well as meet the physical needs of the people who came.

Part of those physical needs were met through boxes of food and cleaning supplies – enough for 400 families. People were waiting in line by 9 a.m. for the boxes, Castillo said.

John Cross, president of the Florida Baptist State Convention, arrived at the event as volunteers began to hand out more boxes after taking a break to serve hot food at lunch.

“I think it is phenomenal,” Cross said about the Crossover events. “I think it’s been an effective way to share Christ in vey practical ways and ways to connect with the church.”

“People are knowing us by our love,” said Cross, pastor of South Biscayne Baptist Church in Northport. “Our actions are speaking louder than our words.”

Related Coverage:

2009 FBSC Annual Meeting, Pensacola

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