At least 1,000 people attended a festival featuring foods prepared by six ethnic churches in the San Antonio Baptist Association June 2 to kick off Crossover San Antonio, an outreach effort preceding the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention.
“The last I heard, we had 24 professions of faith,” Steve Payne, Crossover coordinator for the association, told Baptist Press. “Several people had some questions about whether there were any Baptist churches near where they lived, so we were able to answer those questions. It was a good day, a lot of good fellowship. I think everybody was well pleased with it.”
The international festival, held at Brackenridge Park from noon until 5 p.m., offered free samplings of Chinese, Korean, Lao, Indian and Hispanic food, as well as prize giveaways including a high-definition television and a laptop computer. For the children, there were balloons, slides and snow cones.
Payne said about 140 volunteers from the association and from Intentional Community Evangelism teams from states such as Arizona, Georgia and Kansas joined in the effort.
Several people have asked the association if there will be a similar event next year because they enjoyed it so much.
“Even the park employees wanted to know that because they said it was a neat way for the churches to reach out to the community,” Payne said. – BP