The Crusade Continues

The past month has been a wonderful for our ministry.  For the first time ever, the Crow family has been a part of the Victory Gospel Crusade, this time meeting in Western Ohio.  For an entire year, the pastors involved prayed for God to do great things.  The plan was to meet for three weeks in three separate places: St. Mary’s, Lima, and Troy.  Due to COVID-19, all of the plans we had made for meeting places fell through, and we ended up meeting in three churches, Celina Baptist Temple, Anchored Hope Baptist Church, and Calvary Baptist Church.  After three weeks, it was evident that the Lord wanted us to go a fourth week.

Several prayers were specifically answered during this meeting.  As the COVID-19 situation began to dominate the minds of all Americans, we feared that we might not be able to meet at all.  When it became known that we could meet, we prayed that God would use the virus scare to bring people to Jesus.  Wallace had lost his job and was worrying about life and the future that his two boys might face when he received an invitation to the meeting.  He had never been in church before in his life, but when he came and heard the Gospel for the first time, he got saved.  He has since been baptized and is faithful to church.

Chad sat on his porch under house arrest, like everyone else during the virus regulations.  As one team member approached Chad, he explained, “I am not from around here, but I am a Gospel preacher looking for someone who doesn’t know where they will go when they die and is interested in knowing.  Can you point me to someone like that?”  Chad answered simply, “Yeah.  Me.”  He was saved and has been integrated into one of the churches.

China is the daughter of an atheist whom we were targeting with the Gospel, but the man was not home.  After explaining to China that we were with the Victory Gospel Crusade, I asked her if she knew what the Gospel was.  She said that she did not.  After having it explained to her, she prayed to trust Christ as Savior.

In all, 26 people have trusted Christ during the four weeks of the meeting.  After going four weeks, it was determined that we should take one week off and then move the tent to Lima and begin again.  As I write this, we have begun again in Lima, Ohio. 

Our prayer is that the story of generations would be changed as a result of the Gospel.  Many have accepted Christ and we are hungry for more to come as well.

One of the great realities of this meeting has been a seeming bubble that God has brought to this area.  While the rest of America tries to go forward from the virus, and certain cities burn from riots, it was as if there was nothing going on in this area, but the work of God.

All of this meeting has cemented in our minds the truth that the Gospel must be preached.  It seems that so many ministries want to talk about the Gospel, have conferences about the Gospel, get together for the Gospel, assume the Gospel, have ministries based upon the Gospel, but never get around to preaching the Gospel to lost people.  This month has been unusual, but not because of particularly innovative or new ideas or programs.  We simply pray, we witness, and preach the Gospel; and God gives the increase.

One of the converts that came to Christ in the last month was first met at a protest rally in Sydney, Ohio.  All around us are needy people, some of them in protests of which we are sometimes afraid.  The power of the Gospel is greater than any other force that might be brought to bear.  Just preach it.