Houston church plant seeing fruits of labor yield salvations, baptisms

HOUSTON — It doesn’t take God long to do his thing once we’ve done ours.

Cross Community Church—a plant of Northeast Houston Baptist Church—marked its one-month anniversary this past Sunday. Over the first four weeks of its existence, the church has baptized someone every weekend—a total of seven people, according to Pastor Del Traffanstedt. 

“It’s been a huge encouragement,” Traffanstedt said. “We’re just doing what the Bible says in Acts 2—sharing the gospel—and people are responding and getting baptized. I don’t mean this sarcastically, I just mean it truthfully—when we do what the Bible says, God gives what he promises to give.”

Cross Community held its first service on Sept. 12. Traffanstedt said he believes the church is seeing fruit from their already-achieved goal of reaching every home within a three-mile radius of the campus during what he called a six-week, door-to-door blitz. Every home within that radius has received either a gospel tract or a face-to-face conversation, with many of those interactions yielding gospel conversations.

Houston is one of the largest, most ethnically-diverse and fastest-growing cities in the nation, with a population of nearly 8 million. The area of influence around Cross Community is home to more than 100,000 people, and yet its church planting prospectus notes there are only a handful of SBC churches in the immediate area. 

“My heart kind of grew attached to this area years ago,” said Traffanstedt, a former NEHBC staff member who spent three months working in the area during Hurricane Harvey. “We just felt a strong calling from the Lord to plant here. Ultimately, God made it happen.”