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PrintPastors in West Kentucky are rallying to make the Hope for West Kentucky crusade a life-changing event for the many in the area who do not know Jesus.
The crusade will be Sunday, Nov. 10, at 6:30 p.m. at the McCracken County Expo Center with evangelist Ken Freeman and the Jason Lovins Band
A four-day revival - the first of what they hope to be several meetings - begins Sunday with Pastor Jeff Gibson speaking at First Baptist Church in LaCenter. There will be services Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at various churches.
"The goal is we're hoping for trends of revivals to start taking place before the crusade (on Nov. 10)," said Jason Hay, a member of the church involvement team with the Crossover: Hope for West Kentucky crusade. "We want to get the churches working in cooperation with the gospel. By having some of these rallies and revivals, we're hoping to see the fire break loose so that the lost will come to the crusade."
Hay, the senior pastor at FBC LaCenter, said "we are praying the Lord will stir us up."
Our desire through Hope for West Kentucky is coming alongside the ongoing efforts of local churches to reach their local communities for Christ.
Rob Patterson, the evangelism team leader for the Kentucky Baptist Convention, said the church involvement team is one of many directional teams working. "These local pastors have taken upon themselves the task of personally contacting as many fellow pastors as possible across the west region. They do not want any church to miss out on this great cooperative effort simply because they did not hear about or understand the effort early enough."
The crusade will be the day prior to the KBC's Annual Meeting the following Monday and Tuesday at First Baptist Church in Paducah.
"We have a great opportunity, an open door for us," Hay said. "With that open door, we know Kentucky Baptists are better together. If people don't know about it, they can't be involved."
Hay said putting on an event that will include 4,000 people takes every person and every church. "As the local church trying to do it, it's impossible. It has to be more than one person and more than one church."
That's why the church involvement team is stressing the revivals to send the message throughout the West Kentucky region and not miss the opportunity that is in front of them.
"Everybody knows somebody who doesn't know Jesus," Hay said.
It is imperative, he said, to get the lost to the crusade to hear the gospel preached in a clear way.
"Right now, we have a lot of churches signed up but there are 200 more churches that haven't signed up yet," he said. "We have two full months. In the church world, that's two meetings. There is definitely an urgency. We need to get on top of this and need to get there now. We have to do more than a phone call to the (church) secretary to hit the heart of people who matter the most."
Hay said the associations in West Kentucky have been "on fire" about the crusade and are working to rally churches to either host a revival or participate in one during the next two months.
The revivals will be casting the vision, enlisting churches and volunteers and mobilizing for prayer as the weeks approach leading into the second Sunday in November for the Hope for West Kentucky crusade.
There will be another rally night on Oct. 2 at Trace Creek Baptist Church with Pastor Ronnie Stinson Jr. bringing the message and AMS Mike Jones leading the prayer efforts. The service will begin at 7 p.m. Stinson is part of the church involvement committee and Jones is the prayer chairperson.
"The passion of these local pastors to see as many sister churches working together is driven by the conviction that we are better together," Patterson said. "I am inspired by the burden to pursue an evangelistic effort that requires the involvement of so many churches, and when you participate in the prayer times of this team, you hear them pouring out their hearts that their sister churches might grow and be blessed through the partnership. That's what kingdom cooperation is about."
Churches can find everything they need to promote, participate or volunteer to serve at kybaptist.org/hope.
