Cover Story for November 3, 2005
By Jim White
Before dawn on Sunday, Oct. 23, a dozen or so Virginia Baptists representing Henry County Baptist Association were already brewing coffee and stacking hundreds of donuts beneath their tent beside Gate 7 at Martinsville Speedway. They were preparing for 80,000 race fans many of whom began to file past their location as soon as it was light enough to see.
At 6 a.m. volunteers led a worship service for the vendors who sat up their tents, trailers and kiosks in a vacant field across from the Raceway Ministries tent where our people worked.
Eddie Honneycutt, director of missions for Henry County Baptist Association; Michael Harrison, pastor of Orchard Drive Baptist Church in Bassett; and Eldred Davis, a member of Fork Union Baptist Church, are on hand to encourage and coordinate. Besides the coffee and donuts which are in high demand on this brisk morning, racing schedules containing the plan of salvation are a hot item. By 9 that morning all 7,000 would be gone and Michael wishes aloud they could have afforded to produce the 10,000 they thought they needed. Photos of NASCAR drivers with a brief testimony of their walk with Christ on the back are also popular with the fans.
Not all the fans are unfamiliar with the gospel message, of course. Many are like Craig Waggoner, a member of Beaver Dam Baptist Church north of Knoxville, Tenn., who warmed himself with the coffee and enjoyed the donuts and the tracts. Most fans, however (at least if what is printed on their shirts and, in some cases, their bodies is any indication) are strangers to the Doxology. At 9 a.m., a mixture of both types filled the hundred-plus chairs under the tent for a second worship service, this one for fans. Crosscountry, from Nashville provided the music and Roger Marsh, executive director of the National Fellowship of Raceway Ministries, shared a message from the Word.
The ministry, which also includes three information booths, handicapped transportation and chaplains standing ready to help with any crisis, appears to be a well-practiced routine performed by people who really care. According to John Fox, who founded the ministry at Martinsville in 1992, “You don't have to care anything about racing as long as you care about people.”
The ministry germinated from an idea John had in 1990. On the Sunday of the April race, John, then director of missions for the Henry County Association, was trying to reach First Baptist Church of Ridgeway, where he was scheduled to preach. The only problem was 80,000 other people were trying to reach Martinsville Speedway for the NASCAR race. Arriving at the church two minutes before the start of the service, he complained about the tangle of traffic caused by all the race fans who descended on their town.
That afternoon, however, as he watched the race on TV, he saw the crowd from a different perspective. It occurred to him that 80,000 people came to Martinsville twice a year for NASCAR races! What an incredible mission field made its way semi-annually to their doorstep!
After getting advice from Tom Eggleston of the Southern Baptist Convention's Home Mission Board (now NAMB) and Ed Quattlebaum, a director of missions who had begun a ministry at Darlington (S.C.) Speedway, he talked with Clay Campbell, president of Martinsville Speedway, and ministry began in 1992.
John soon discovered that others were also concerned about providing ministry at race tracks. “We were about the sixth ministry at racetracks that we knew of. In 1994, we met at Darlington and organized the National Fellowship of Raceway Ministries.” John served as the president of the group for the first three years. The organization is made up of autonomous ministry groups, but it provides a national identity for ministry at racetracks.
Barry Morrison remembers the first service they led that first year in 1992. “The first year we were here, we were set up on a flat bed truck having a gospel-sing. This was before they put in the culvert and there was a creek running behind us. Well, as we were singing, a truck rolled to a stop on the bank of the creek and a guy who had had too much to drink jumped out and shouted “Let the party begin!” At this point, he lost his footing, slid down the bank and fell right in the creek. Somebody from our group, I think it was Phillip Woods, said “Well, looky there. We got our first baptism!”
“We have always thought of this as a seed-sowing ministry,” Fox offers. To illustrate, he told a story: “We've heard from people at other tracks of people who made decisions for Christ as a result of our ministry. I remember when some of our volunteers were in Florida. As they went back to their car a man remarked about their Virginia license plate and he asked where they were from. When he learned they were from Martinsville, he said he had been to Martinsville for a race where he had been influenced by a group of Christians who had a tent set up. They had given him some information about Christ, and as a result he had become a Christian. It turns out he was a medical doctor. Those kinds of stories make you realize the potential.”
Billy Davis, church ministries consultant with the Richmond Baptist Association, who heads the Richmond branch of Raceway Ministries, also understands the potential. Although the challenges of ministry at Richmond are different because the main race is held on Saturday evening, Virginia Baptist volunteers are making a difference there, too.
Tim Byrd, chairman of deacons at McCabe Memorial Baptist Church, provided a framework for ministry in such a setting. “You know, if people don't like church and what you're offering looks like church and sounds like church, they probably won't come.” Aside from what unchurched people might or might not like about church, the responsibility is ours to seek them. Wherever they are.
That's why Eddie Honneycutt chose his words very carefully when he stood at the start/finish line on the racetrack to deliver a brief invocation. An audience of 70 million would be listening, and Eddie was determined to plant some gospel seeds.
Staff report
Jim White is editor of the Religious Herald.