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Crossfest - a vision for the future May 2, 2008 - No reporter cited

Dewayne Holloway
Sports Editor

NASHVILLE-What started as a concert for area youth three years ago has turned into a crusade for the entire community.

The Second Annual Crossfest will be Saturday, May 10, at the Nashville City Park. The concert will start at 11:30 a.m,. with local bands performing, followed by seven different nationally recognized Christian bands.

This year, Evangelist Ken Freeman will lead a citywide crusade May 8-11 at the Sixth Street Auditorium. Freeman will also speak at the city park on Saturday during Crossfest.

The idea for Crossfest sprang from the hearts of area youth leaders. The youth leaders of area churches started meeting five years ago with a desire to come together and reach the youth of the Nashville area.

Phil Brown, youth pastor at First Baptist Church of Nashville, points out that 95 percent of all Americans who accept Jesus as their Savior will do so before they reach the age of 20. Brown went on to state that “80 percent of these will be saved during their teenage years.”

The area youth leaders realized that they weren’t reaching the area youth because of the division caused by denominationalism among area churches. At the first meetings they admitted that they agreed with one another on 95 percent of the major spiritual topics and disagreed on maybe five percent. They chose to focus on the 95 percent that they agreed upon and use that to fulfill God’s Great Commision.

The Nashville-area Network 4 Teens was the result of their decision to come together. Their mission statement is “Uniting the body of Christ and Partnering two fulfill the Great Commision...among teenagers in SW Arkansas”. Their purpose is to reach the 80 percent who will become the leaders of our churches in the future.

Three years ago, The T.N.N.4T. sponsored a Christian concert at the city park that featured Christian recording artists Sonic Flood. Brown remembers introducing the band and commenting to the crowd that it was great that the city of Nashville had built this outdoor concert facility so that people could come together for Christ. He then went on to ask why didn’t they just plan a whole day to listen to Christian music and worship God. This was the birth of Crossfest.

Last year, T.N.N.4T. sponsored the First Annual Crossfest with several local and regional bands performing with national recording artists By the Tree headlining the music festival.

Crossfest was considered a success, but area youth leaders felt that they could do more. Bringing an evangelist to speak during the next Crossfest was brought up and Evangelist Ken Freeman’s name was brought into the discussion.

Freeman has been an evangelist for over 20 years. During this time Freeman has seen over 200,000 decisions for Christ and continues to reach people for God at every opportunity.

James Spradlin, Pastor at County Line Baptist Church, felt that the area ministerial alliance should be involved in considering an area-wide crusade that would coincide with the event. Spradlin and Brown took the idea to the ministerial alliance, which loved the idea. The result was an area-wide crusade that will start Thursday, May 8 and run through Sunday, May 11 with Crossfest on Saturday, May 10.

Freeman will be the speaker for the crusade, which will meet at the Sixth Street Auditorium. Services will start Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 6 p.m.

Saturday the crusade will coincide with Crossfest at the city park with Freeman speaking at 6:30 p.m. Brown said, “We hope that the crusade starts at the Sixth Street Auditorium, but that enough people come that we are forced to move to the city park for the rest of the weekend.”

Crossfest will start at 11:30 a.m. with three area bands: Reawakened, a youth band from County Line Baptist Church of Nashville; 24-7 Band, a youth band from First Baptist Church in Nashville and the Brad Sullivan Band from Ashdown.

The area bands will be followed by bands Candlefuse, Honey Grove Ball Team, Goesl’s Parade, Deas Vail, Pocket Full of Rocks with 2 Empty Chairs leading worship before Freeman takes the stage at 6:30 p.m.

The concert will wrap up with the feature band Wavorly at 8:00 p.m.

This is an outdoor event and T.N.N.4T. would like to remind you that you will need to bring your own chairs. This is a free event, but a love offering will be collected. No outside food or ice chests will be allowed.

T.N.N.4T. asks everyone to pray for souls to be saved during the crusade and they also encourage everyone to attend the crusade.

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