• Contact Us
  • Classifieds
  • About
  • Home

Pathway

Missouri Baptist Convention's Official News Journal

  • Missouri
    • MBC
    • Churches
    • Institutions & Agencies
    • Policy
    • Disaster Relief
  • National
    • SBC Annual Meeting
    • NAMB
    • SBC
    • Churches
    • Policy
    • Society & Culture
  • Global
    • Missions
    • Multicultural
  • Columnists
    • Wes Fowler
    • Ben Hawkins
    • Pat Lamb
    • Rhonda Rhea
    • Rob Phillips
  • Ethics
    • Life
    • Liberty
    • Family
  • Faith
    • Apologetics
    • Religions
    • Evangelism
    • Missions
    • Bible Study & Devotion
  • E-Edition

More results...

NASHVILLE – Send Relief’s mobile clinics will be a feature of the 2021 Crossover evangelism event in Nashville. (NAMB photo by Alexandra Toy)

Altered for pandemic, Crossover evangelism event will precede SBC annual meeting in Nashville

May 18, 2021 By Brandon Elrod

NASHVILLE (BP) – For more than 30 years, Southern Baptists have focused on working together to serve and reach those in the host city of the SBC annual meeting through an evangelism emphasis called Crossover.

This year’s approach in Nashville will differ from previous years, but Southern Baptists are cooperating to help churches in Middle Tennessee minister to their communities.

“Crossover will continue its legacy of pushing back spiritual darkness in the SBC host city, which is, this year, the great city of Nashville,” said Randy Davis, executive director of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board (TBMB). “Crossover will be two days when local Middle Tennessee churches will intentionally engage their communities in various ways, actually putting the ‘Gospel above all.’”

In a typical year for Crossover, mission teams and churches from across the nation are encouraged to participate in a wide variety of outreach efforts, but concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic led the TBMB and the North American Mission Board (NAMB) to focus primarily on aiding churches in and around Nashville to reach out to their communities.

Nashville-area churches are encouraged to conduct a special outreach event on Saturday, June 12, to invite neighbors to church, and then follow it up the next day, Sunday, June 13, with a Who’s Your One emphasis where churches across Middle Tennessee present the Gospel clearly and invite people to respond during their Sunday services.

“We are working diligently to see that Crossover will be a success even in the midst of a pandemic,” said Roc Collins, director of evangelism at the TBMB. “We recently offered training events for more than 50 churches in the Greater Nashville area.”

Those training events were conducted in cooperation with members of NAMB’s evangelism team as well as associational leaders as NAMB, the TBMB and the local associations have been encouraging churches to work together.

“I’m very appreciate of our southern Baptist convention partnerships, between the state convention, NAMB and the local association all working together on Crossover,” said Rusty Sumrall, executive director of the Nashville Baptist Association. “We have five different associations here in Middle Tennessee working with the state convention and NAMB, and that’s pretty exciting to see all those folks working together for one purpose in Crossover and to see God do something positive during that weekend.”

As with every Crossover event, all six Southern Baptist seminaries are invited to send seminary students for a week-long evangelism intensive where they will spend their mornings in the classroom before going out to serve local churches in the Nashville area in going door to door in their communities. Tom Johnston, senior professor of evangelism at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, said that 100 students will participate in this year’s annual Crossover Seminary Evangelism Class (CSEC).

“It is a fun-filled time, a spiritually-taxing time, as well as a true spiritual high – all mixed together,” Johnston said. “Please be in prayer for this year’s students, faculty, local churches and the people with whom we will share the Gospel.”

NAMB’s Send Relief medical and dental units will be in Nashville as well to serve those in need who could use the free medical and dental check-ups offered by professionals who will volunteer their time. The location where the units will set up has yet to be determined.

Churches in the Nashville area can register to participate in Crossover at namb.net/crossover.

Comments

Featured Videos

Lick Creek Fellowship - A Story of Cooperation

A declining rural church faced closure after years of dwindling attendance and aging members. But after the doors closed, a small group stepped in to build something fresh from its legacy. Watch this video to hear this story of cooperation and new life.

Find More Videos

Trending

  • Eight resolutions proposed for 2025 SBC Annual Meeting

  • The blessing of staying

  • IMB trustees appoint new missionaries, elect first woman chair

  • Southern Baptists to vote on Business and Financial Plan that emphasizes trustee governance

  • Amendment on role of women in pastoral ministry fails to achieve 2/3 vote

  • Twin Rivers Association, FBC Troy donate RV trailers to families affected by Hurricane Helene

Ethics

In ‘landmark ruling,’ Supreme Court upholds Tennessee law banning gender transition treatment for minors

Timothy Cockes

In a historic decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday (June 18) that a Tennessee law banning gender transition medical treatments for minors is constitutional.

Supreme Court instructs New York to uphold religious liberty

Laura Erlanson

More Ethics Stories

Missouri

Pastors equipped through MBC readiness assessments, coaching

Brianna Boes

“If you’re a pastor, we want you to succeed.” That’s the message Dustin Burdin received when he moved to Missouri to pastor full-time at First Baptist Church, Webb City. The support from his association and from the Missouri Baptist Convention spoke immediately of a nurturing culture unlike anything Burdin had experienced before.

Copyright © 2025 · The Pathway