Lighthouse Baptist Church Outreach Ministries

SMITE Campaign, Cleveland Ohio
July 7 - 11, 2008

S.M.I.T.E. (Summer Missionary Institute of Training and Evangelism) is a week long effort led by teens, and monitored by adults.  The effort is targeted toward children, and is performed in a specific location for the entire week.  Every fifth year, the location is amongst the communities served by the Cleveland Baptist Church, which also organizes the effort.  This year, twenty teams conducted schools throughout the areas surrounding Cleveland Baptist Church, north of Brooklyn and around Lakewood.  During a typical day, the teens wake up at 6am, spend 3 1/2 hours visiting door-to-door, then spend 2 hours in the afternoon holding local Bible schools.  At 6pm, they leave to pick up their bus riders for the evening Bible School, and are through with the official part of the day by 10pm.

This year, the Bible Clubs were attended by hundreds of children every day and at evening services as well.  There were 226 decisions for salvation, and hundreds of new riders and new contacts were established for the Bus Ministry of the Cleveland Baptist Church.  Our teen group, consisting of Pastor Hamilton, Steve DeChurch (adult), Karen Allen (adult), Irena Block, Nicole Tierney, Denwood Ross, Jesse Jones, Nate Poff, Ricky Allen, Anthony Brown, and Johnny Miller experienced wonderful opportunities to serve the Lord in a very personal way.  Several teens also led a child to the Lord for the first time.

Pictures of the teens in action during the week can be found at SMITE 2008.