Local pastors plan Community Crusade

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More than 10 Clarendon County churches are joining with a couple from Sumter County bring a one-of-a-kind event to fruition. The 2015 Area-wide Spring Crusade won’t be held until 6:30 p.m. daily from March 15-18 at Manning High School’s Carl Ramsey Stadium, but its genesis started in mid-2014. “A group of pastors initially started meeting from some of the local Baptist churches,” said Pastor Mike DeCosta of Clarendon Baptist Church in Alcolu. Initially the small group consisted of pastors Graham Bochman of Providence Baptist Church, Leon Winn of Rock Hill Missionary Baptist Church, Neal Sweet of Home Branch Baptist Church and Sammy Thompson of Lakewood Baptist Church. “They held an interfaith rally at Rock Hill Missionary Baptist Church last year, and it was a really successful event,” DeCosta said. “They wanted to expand on that.” DeCosta began talking with Thompson and Sweet about such an expansion. “We all decided that it didn’t need to be just a bunch of Baptists or just a bunch of white guys planning this,” DeCosta said. “We knew if we wanted to bring the community together, then we needed to include people of all faiths and racial identities.” DeCosta said their planning became more earnest in light of events in Ferguson, Missouri, and New York, where black suspects were shot by white policemen. In both those cases, the officer was later cleared, sparking outrage that, in Ferguson, led to a series of riots. “We though, ‘Why not us?’ in light of all of that,” DeCosta said. “Why can’t we bring people together and break down these barriers before it leads to something like that?” And, leading from that question, DeCosta and his fellow pastors asked themselves, “Why not the pastors?” “The pastors should be leading something like this,” he said. “We started talking initially in September, and it’s just grown from there. We’re excited about the potential breaking down of barriers, whether religious or racial. If there’s another barrier between our residents, we want to break that down as well. And we believe Christ is how you can do that.” DeCosta said Evangelist Adrian Despres, a chaplain for the University of South Carolina Gamecocks football team, will be the guest speaker. According to Despres’ chaplain site, he became a Christian while playing football for Furman University in Greenville. His speaking career started gradually as he began to share his newfound faith at public events throughout the state. He graduated in 1990 from seminary at Columbia International University in Columbia, and joined the itinerant ministry staff at Kingdom Building Ministries, where he continues to serve. “My passion is to see lost souls saved and Christians called into a life of laboring for God,” said Despres. A resident of Columbia, Despres and his wife, Lisa, have four children, Rachel, Branson, Kaitlyn and Benjamin. DeCosta said local churches involved in the crusade include Home Branch, Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church, Green Hill Missionary Baptist Church, Clarendon Baptist, Grace Christian Fellowship Church, Manning First Baptist Church, Lakewood, Rock Hill Missionary and Providence, just to name a few. “We really have tons of churches involved,” DeCosta said. “We are looking forward to this exciting event, and we hope it’s something that we can do every year.” He said the event will include events for youth and children. “We hope to have some bounce houses and things that kids can do before the event itself,” he said. A nursery will be provided for children 5 and younger at Manning First Baptit Church each night.