The Crescent Hill and Campbellsville decisions dominated headlines. A significant feature of this year’s convention, though, was the great stories told. Speakers were encouraged to “tell your story” in order to inspire other Kentucky Baptists to share theirs.

For KBC President Chip Hutcheson, editor of Princeton’s newspaper, almost being in a car accident brought him to his knees.

When he was 24 and sports editor for the Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville, Hutcheson recalled that his future wife’s father, a minister, had asked him if he were to die, where he would go. “I lied to him,” Hutcheson confessed. “I said I would go to heaven because I was a good person. No. 1, I wasn’t a good person; No. 2, I didn’t know how to be saved.” The minister kindly explained that to go to heaven, he needed to ask for God’s forgiveness and to allow Jesus to come into his life.

Not long afterward, a car ran a stop sign right in front of Hutcheson. “Man, it hit me! If I had been a couple of seconds ahead of that, I would have died, and I’d have been in hell,”he said. At that moment, he asked Jesus into his heart.

“I’m thankful we can come to Him with broken hearts, and He will accept us just as we are,” Hutcheson said.

For Brad Walker, pastor of Carlisle Avenue Church in Louisville and chair of the Committee on Annual Meeting, a drawing captured his attention.

Growing up in a Christian home, Walker accepted Christ as a boy during a revival. During his teen years, though, he was “playing a game,” he confided. “I was living for myself, living a double life.”

In college, at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting, a layman drew a long line and placed a dot on it. Imagine the line represents eternity, and this dot is your life, he instructed. “Are you living for the dot, or are you living for the line?” he asked, quoting Luke 9:23-25. Walker gave his life to Christ and found a new desire to share God’s love. “I began to go from friend to friend to tell them about Jesus,” he said.

For Greg Faulls, pastor of Bellevue Church in Owensboro and vice chair of the Committee on Credentials, a Gideon Bible opened his heart.

At a young age, Faulls fancied himself to be an atheist. Gradually, he came to a realization that there had to be a God, and “I figured if God made me, then He made me for a purpose.” he recalled. Faulls had no idea where to start, but “God knew where to lead me.” he said. In 1984, he picked up a Bible in a hotel room. He discovered two things: 1) the people in Bible had the same hurts, fears and questions he did; 2) the God of that Bible was their answer.

Thanking God for the Gideons, Faulls quoted a Beatles’ lyric: “And now Rocky Raccoon he fell back in his room only to find Gideon’s Bible. Gideon checked out and he left it no doubt to help with good Rocky’s revival.”

For Josh Landrum, pastor of Bullitt Lick Church and chair of the Constitution & Bylaws Committee, a fishing trip provided the setting.

At age 5, while catfishing on the back of his grandfather’s houseboat one night, they began talking about the conversation between Jesus and Peter in which Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am, and who do you say I am?”His grandfather then explained to young Josh what it means for Jesus to be the Christ, the Messiah.

“On a Friday night, sitting on the back of houseboat on the Ohio River, God opened my eyes to His mercy and His grace, and that I needed a Savior,” Landrum rejoiced.

To be continued