Southwestern, TBC students use ‘right questions’ to engage in Gospel conversations during Crossover in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS – Embracing the “uncomfortableness of evangelizing with strangers,” 26 Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and Texas Baptist College students engaged 800 people, sharing the Gospel 168 times resulting in 5 professions of faith from June 5 to 8 during the weeklong Crossover teaching and training among the neighborhoods, wards, parks, and historic French Quarter that make up the city of New Orleans, said Carl J. Bradford, assistant professor of evangelism and faculty leader of Southwestern and TBC’s Crossover team.

“Crossover provides opportunities for further cooperation within our convention,” said Bradford, who holds the Malcolm R. and Melba L. McDow Chair of Evangelism and has taught at Southwestern since 2018. “Students partner with churches and NAMB to engage the surrounding community of the SBC’s annual meeting of that particular year through door-to-door evangelism. It’s fulfilling the Great Commission together.”

New Orleans native and Assistant Professor of Evangelism at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary Carl J. Bradford led the 26 Southwestern Seminary and Texas Baptist College students during Crossover, held in New Orleans the week preceding the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting.

A native of New Orleans, Bradford led the group of Fort Worth-based students as they joined students and evangelism professors from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, for a week that included learning how to share the Gospel and best practices for evangelism in the morning and then canvassing the “Big Easy” to engage in Gospel conversations each afternoon.

Southwestern and TBC students, who represented eight countries and 12 degree programs, partnered with Free Mission Baptist Church in the city’s Lower Ninth Ward and First Baptist Church of New Orleans, which is sandwiched between the city’s Lakewood and City Park neighborhoods. Working with the churches, students divided into groups of seven and went with a guide to a neighborhood near the church. Once in the neighborhood the teams split into smaller groups and went door-to-door to share the Gospel.

Describing the people of New Orleans as “very kind,” but the city as “a bit dangerous,” Priscilla Krolis, a Master of Arts in Biblical Counseling student from Curaçao who was on her second Crossover team, said she learned when the team would see “dangerous guys” it was important to “look them in the eye, smile” and “acknowledge them and treat them as any other human being.” Krolis explained this proved to be disarming as she “noticed that quickly” there was a “behavior change toward us.”

Krolis said the students met people who were Catholic or others who were “open to believing whatever” in reference to spiritual matters, including one man who she said was “willing to listen to us as another option.” He was “not realizing that Jesus is the only way, but just listened to another belief,” Krolis explained, adding the man told the team that, “he rolls with Jesus and demons” and was, therefore, “okay with anything.”

The Southwestern Seminary and TBC students partnered with Free Mission Baptist Church and First Baptist Church of New Orleans to work with church members going door-to-door to share the Gospel in neighborhoods nearby each church.

However, the students were able to begin immediately implementing what they were learning in the classroom as they shared the Gospel in the afternoon, including Claire Carlisle,* a student in the 2+3 program who is from Huntsville, Texas.

Carlisle, who was participating in Crossover for the first time, said the week “has really been just about God breaking my heart for the people around here, and seeing how to take the things we’re learning in overcoming objections, and bring those conversations to a point where there’s more of a back-and-forth conversation.” She said in the classroom setting Bradford taught the students to “ask the right questions of people to gain what their understanding is, and then see where the need is, and see the Holy Spirit work through that.”

Carlisle explained how she shared the Gospel using the 3 Circles track with a woman who said “she did not believe in God.” Carlisle said asking the woman, “If there was God, what do you think He would be like?” allowed the woman to provide her own description. Carlisle said she used the opportunity “to go back to the Gospel.” She said she also asked the woman, “If there was a God and you could ask Him for anything, what would you tell God that you need the most?”

“And at that moment, she just broke down crying,” Carlisle recalled. “She never would verbalize what it was that she would ask from God, but she knew. And she knew that she wasn’t quite as agnostic as she thought she was.”

Carlisle said the woman’s nonverbal response led her to ask, “Do you need a hug?” The team was then able “to talk a lot more in a more personal, relevant way and talk about who God was with her,” she said.

Southwestern Seminary and TBC students said they learned to ask good questions as they were engaging in Gospel conversations among the neighborhoods in New Orleans.

Students who have participated in multiple Crossover experiences could see how their fear and hesitancies in sharing the Gospel have dissipated, including Elinor Moore,* a TBC student in the 5-year degree program from East Asia.

Moore’s first Crossover trip was in 2021 to Nashville, where she was put on a team with Bradford. She said during the 2021 experience, as Bradford led the group to knock on doors she was “really scared” and would “pray, ‘Please do not open the door,’” when it was her turn to share the Gospel. However, Moore said she, too, has learned from Bradford the use of asking good questions while also recognizing that it is “really not from me, that [it] is from the Holy Spirit.”

“When I communicate with the people, I might forget something I was supposed to say or I said something I didn’t [think] about before,” Moore said. “So, it really depends on the Holy Spirit, [as] the Holy Spirit will lead the conversation.” She said she will use these lessons in Fort Worth, in her home country, and on the mission field.

While sharing the Gospel with people in New Orleans during Crossover, Elinor Moore*, a student in Southwestern Seminary and Texas Baptist College’s 5-year program, said she learned to depend on the Holy Spirit.

Doctor of Philosophy student Emmanuel Escareno, a native of San Jose, California, participated in his sixth Crossover trip. His veteran status among the students on the team allowed Escareno to lead a group of students while in the neighborhoods, while also modeling best evangelism practices for them. This included “how I would do the practical stuff of introduction, smiling, holding or passing out tracks, kind of leading to a Gospel conversation,” he said, all with the aim of seeing the other students recognize, “Hey, this is not as scary as it can be. It’s just having a normal conversation.”

Escareno said imparting these lessons is something he wants “to continue to do” as he thinks “there is no greater joy than sharing the Gospel and seeing other people experience that as well.”

Moore encouraged other Southwestern Seminary and TBC students to participate in future Crossover experiences as she said the classroom teaching “refreshed” her in “what Jesus did on the cross for my sin” as well as “see[ing] people are broken and live in sin, which motivates me desperately to share the Gospel with them and I hope they can have the freedom I have in Christ.”

She concluded that “after seeing people come to Christ, it encourages me a lot” as she realized, “Wow. God truly uses me to do His work.”

The next Crossover is scheduled for June 3-7, 2024, in Indianapolis, Indiana.

*Names changed for security reasons.