c. 2005 Religion News Service

CLEVELAND _ The nation’s largest Protestant church is coming into the heart of one of the nation’s most Catholic regions with a two-year, approximately $2.5 million evangelistic effort to win souls in Northeast Ohio.

The 16.3 million-member Southern Baptist Convention selected Cleveland as its Strategic Focus City in the United States for the years 2006 and 2007. Thousands of volunteers will be pouring in from all over the country to help win converts and start new churches in an area that now has only one Southern Baptist church for every 43,000 people, compared with the national average, Southern Baptists say, of one of its churches for every 6,400 people. In Canada, the same type of campaign will be conducted in Vancouver.

Based on programs the denomination used elsewhere, starting next year Northeast Ohio residents should expect door-to-door evangelism, sports camps, block parties, advertising and service projects. In New York, the volunteers handed out prepaid 10-minute phone cards and free candy bars and doughnuts on street corners as part of the campaign.

In smaller missionary efforts tied to their annual meetings, Southern Baptists have marched down The Strip in Las Vegas, handed out church literature in the French Quarter in New Orleans and gone door to door in the Mormon stronghold of suburban Salt Lake City.

The initiative, which has already taken place in Phoenix and Chicago and is now in New York, began in 2000 as an ambitious effort to expand the reach of the denomination from its historic base in the South to key metropolitan areas in the North and West.

Catholics outnumber Southern Baptists by about 100-to-1 in Greater Cleveland. But the region was chosen in part because it has a strong evangelical base and a sense of solidarity among urban and suburban churches.

“It’s exciting. I’m thrilled to death about it,” said the Rev. Rick Duncan, pastor of Cuyahoga Valley Community Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in Broadview Heights. “This is a huge deal for Cleveland.”

For Southern Baptists, the massive evangelical effort is being done to fulfill what they interpret as “The Great Commission” in the Gospel of Matthew to offer people the opportunity to accept Jesus Christ as their savior.

But some already are urging the evangelical denomination to be sensitive to the diversity of religious beliefs in a region with sizable Jewish and Islamic populations.

“I would hope that in their invitation they would be very respectful of the other faith traditions who do not share their beliefs,” said Jean Ohlenbusch, executive director of the interfaith group InterAct Cleveland. “This city has done very well, by and large, in having the conversation and being respectful.”

While the membership of many liberal Protestant churches was beginning what would become steep declines, the membership of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention more than doubled in size in the 1960s and 1970s to rush past the United Methodist Church to become the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Growth has slowed substantially in recent years, however, averaging less than 1 percent nationally since 1990. In Ohio, the number of Southern Baptist churches increased from 510 to 532, but membership actually declined by 4,000 to 145,000 in 2003. In Lake, Geauga and Cuyahoga counties, which make up the Greater Cleveland Baptist Association, the convention has held steady in the last decade with 37 congregations serving some 6,000 members.

The Southern Baptists, comprised primarily of white churchgoers in the South, are one of the more prominent Baptist groups. White Northern Baptists predominantly and traditionally have belonged to the American Baptist Church. There are several predominantly black national Baptist groups.

The target cities initiative has had some success. The convention said that the program has led to 47,000 first-time professions of faith and that more than 300 churches have been started in six targeted cities: Chicago, Las Vegas, Miami, New York, Philadelphia and Phoenix. So far, 36,000 volunteers have come from throughout the country to do mission work in the targeted cities.

Southern Baptists will be working in Northeast Ohio over the next year to plan the project, which is a shared initiative among the North American Mission Board, the State Convention of Baptists in Ohio and the Greater Cleveland Baptist Association.

The Rev. Jack Kwok, executive director of the state convention, said the denomination’s main goal is “to make a positive, righteous, Godly contribution to Cleveland.”

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To that end, church officials emphasized their desire to cooperate with area evangelicals in the campaign.

The Rev. Gary Frost, a former Youngstown pastor who used to lead the strategic cities effort as vice president of the North American Missions Board, said that in some ways it can be compared to a Billy Graham Crusade.

But not everyone shares the Southern Baptist belief that religious freedom means being able to present to everyone their belief that salvation is gained only through faith in Christ. The campaign is not just for people who are not active in churches or are inactive in their faith, but will seek to reach practicing Jews, Muslims and Christians who do not share Southern Baptist beliefs.

Rabbi Matthew Eisenberg, president of the Greater Cleveland Board of Rabbis, said he is grateful for America’s tradition of religious freedom. But he said telling people they have to believe the way you do to achieve salvation moves discussions of faith from conversations to confrontations.

“There is such a thing … as respecting other people’s beliefs,” he said. “The point of tolerance is understanding and respecting people who are different from you.”

Ohlenbusch said it is OK to share your faith with others, but would-be evangelists should ask permission first.

“If the person says no, then go away,” she said.

Sister Margaret Mach, director of the office of evangelization for the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, said all Christians are called to spread the Word of God, to evangelize.

But there are different ways to go about it, she said.

“As Catholics, we do this not to coerce people, not to impose, but it is always an invitation,” she said. “It starts with an attitude of respect.”

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(David Briggs is a staff writer for the Plain Dealer in Cleveland)