Kansas Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists (KNCSB)

Outreach event precedes KNCSB meeting

A community outreach event called Crossover Central Nebraska preceded the KNCSB annual meeting in Lexington, Neb. It was held Monday morning, Oct. 10. Lexington is home to 2,000 Somalis. Here, one of the teams prepares to distribute gift bags in an apartment complex where Somalis live. Parkview Baptist Church, host church for the annual meeting, prepared the gift bags.

A town of 4,000 Anglos, 6,500 Hispanics and 2,000 Somalis—that describes Lexington, Neb., host city for the 2010 KNCSB annual meeting.

Pre-meeting activities included a new outreach event called Crossover Central Nebraska on Monday morning, Oct. 11.

A group consisting mostly of KNCSB staff members and directors of missions went prayerwalking in Lexington and Kearney.

Parkview Baptist Church in Lexington was host to the KNCSB annual meeting.

“We’re praying for renewal and a revival,” said John Shields, Parkview’s pastor. He and his wife, Julie, and their family have served at Parkview for nearly 15 years.

The focus in Kearney was on the University of Nebraska-Kearney, which does not have a Southern Baptist ministry, and on a mobile-home community that is a target for starting a new church.

In Lexington, part of the focus was on the ethnic communities that are home to workers at the local Tyson packing plant.

Parkview’s church members prepared more than 80 gift bags for prayer teams to distribute in apartment complexes where Somalis live.

Since the Tyson plant works three shifts, the apartment residents were asleep when the prayer teams visited. So they prayed in hushed tones and left gift bags by each door.

Other teams prayed over Lexington’s schools and the downtown business area. Lexington’s downtown is home to Anglo and Hispanic businesses as well as those that focus on the Somali community. In addition, prayer teams covered the area around Parkview Baptist Church on the north edge of Lexington.

When the morning was over, one Lexington resident had accepted Christ. Jon Sapp, KNCSB evangelism director, met a man who claimed to be the town’s only homeless person. The man shared about his fear of death and that he had not even attended his mother’s funeral. Sapp told him how he could overcome his fears by accepting Christ as his Savior.

The prayer teams returned to Parkview Baptist Church for a debriefing session. They were full of excitement about how they had seen God work.

Plans are already being made for another Crossover preceding the 2011 KNCBS annual meeting. It will be held Oct. 17-18 at Lenexa Baptist Church, Lenexa, Kan.