Video: In nation’s capital, Christians ‘Crusade’
New on The Christian Chronicle’s website is this story and video by correspondent Hamil R. Harris:
WASHINGTON – The Washington Hilton has hosted many presidents and political elites, but the sight of a baptismal pool and the sound of a cappella hymns filling the grand hotel’s ballroom may have been a first.
The Crusade for Christ, which every two years draws hundreds of volunteers and leads to dozens of baptisms in a different major city, kicked off in the nation’s capital about the same time as Hurricane Irene struck.
But even as many Washington-area religious groups canceled weekend services, the hurricane failed to derail the crusade.
When the storm passed through the area, about 600 people were singing “I am a hard-fighting soldier, on the battlefield” during the crusade’s opening banquet.
John Dansby, the evangelistic event’s chief of staff and minister for the Russell Road Church of Christ in Shreveport, La., smiled and told the gathering, “I was a meteorologist in the Air Force, and from the beginning, I wasn’t worried” about the weather.
For a week, the Hilton was transformed into a sanctuary filled with “foot soldiers” — church members from across the nation — in yellow and green shirts.
Read the full report.
