HOUSTON (BP) – People are responding to the Gospel in a way Bob Crites has not seen in the nearly 30 years he has been at Sagemont Church.
“It’s almost like a revival mentality,” said Crites, the church’s chairman of deacons. “We expect to see people saved every time we go to church.”
Sagemont is a historic congregation located in Houston, the fourth-largest city in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, that is also one of the nation’s most diverse metro areas. The church’s attendance has increased by about 800 people since March, and so far this year it has baptized more than 260 and tallied at least 450 professions of faith – not counting the 400 recorded on Easter Sunday alone.
“We’ve been very intentional at encouraging the church to pray for lost people by name and to learn how to share the Gospel,” said Levi Skipper, Sagemont’s senior pastor. He added that church leaders have sought to cultivate a welcoming culture so people will want to invite their friends, coworkers and neighbors to church.
“My commitment to them is that I’m going to preach Jesus every single Sunday,” Skipper said. “You will not come in and hear me preach and not give an invitation to accept Christ.”
Skipper, who most recently served as a vice president at the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, preaches verse by verse through books of the Bible and always ends up at the cross, he said. “I share the Gospel, I encourage people to pray to receive Jesus, and then I encourage them to come forward.”
An average of 20 people have been going forward each Sunday to signify a commitment to Christ, and Sagemont has been ushering them onto a disciple’s pathway defined by four steps: worship, connect, grow and go.
On Easter, each person who entered the worship center received a card with three options to indicate a level of commitment. During the sermon, Skipper asked everyone to take out their cards and respond. Some indicated they were already members of Sagemont, others noted they had prayed to receive Christ that day, and others wanted more information.
Everyone dropped their cards in buckets on the way out of the service, and Sagemont began following up on those that needed to take the next step.
Sagemont also has been intentional about leveraging events to move people along the disciple’s pathway, Skipper said. In July, 300 volunteers were trained to share the Gospel with thousands of people at a patriotic event on campus.
“You train them how to do it, but then you have to give them an opportunity to do it,” he said of evangelism. At the patriotic event, the pastor and volunteers walked around sharing the Gospel conversationally.
Another way Skipper teaches the congregation to share Christ is by using a similarly worded invitation during the sermon each week. “I do that on purpose because in doing that, I’m actually training believers how to share Jesus. They probably don’t even realize they’re being trained.”
Some older men in the congregation have told the pastor they pray every Sunday specifically for the invitation. “I would not want to underestimate the fact that the Lord could just be answering one of those guys’ prayers,” Skipper said. “Their prayers mean more than they would ever imagine.”
Crites is among those praying.
“I’m always in the service – before the invitation and while the pastor is preaching – asking the Holy Spirit to move in our midst and seek out people who are lost or those who are stagnant in their faith and convict their hearts and move them to more fellowship in Jesus,” Crites said.
Ken Heibner responded to the invitation earlier this year. “If you could see the change in Ken, it’s pretty remarkable,” Skipper said. “… It’s amazing what the Lord has done.”
Heibner’s children, ages 12 and 8, had accepted Christ at Sagemont, and the youngest was being baptized on Skipper’s first Sunday as pastor. Though his wife usually took the children to church, Heibner was there that day for the baptism.
Skipper soon took Heibner to lunch and shared Christ, but he wasn’t ready to commit. The pastor then invited Heibner to a small discipleship group with other men. Eventually, Heibner decided to follow Jesus.
“The reason why I liked Levi is there wasn’t any kind of pressure to accept things,” Heibner said, noting that it took time for his eyes to open to what he had been missing. The group of men encouraged him by telling their stories of coming to Christ and by helping him feel like he could ask questions, he said.
Before he was saved, what seemed like hypocrisy from churchgoers had kept him away, Heibner said. “My experience with Sagemont hasn’t been that way. It’s like everybody that I’ve met is pretty genuine, and they’re all there for the same reason.”
Crites – and the entire congregation – is excited to see the changed lives.
“Only the Holy Spirit can do that, and we’re so thankful that He’s moving in our midst right now,” Crites said. “It’s been fun.”
This article appeared in the Southern Baptist TEXAN.
