By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor ALEXANDRIA, La. (LBM) – M.E. Dodd, the former pastor of First Baptist Church, Shreveport, is most often cel­ebrated for his leadership in establishing the Cooperative Program, Baptists’ primary funding channel for state and national cooperative missions and ministries, but the focus of his efforts on this initiative is too often underemphasized – soul winning. Indeed, Dodd’s entire ministry was defined by soul winning. During his first month with FBCS, he preached a re­vival, adding 98 new believers to the 600-member congrega­tion. In early 1918 (as WWI raged), he volunteered to be a U.S. Army chaplain, eventu­ally settling to be a camp reli­gious worker with the YMCA attached to the Second Army and recorded 5,000 profes­sions of faith that year. For the duration of his 50 years of ministry, he recorded 7,000 baptisms. Importantly, as part of the celebration of the 100th an­niversary of the formation of the Southern Baptist Con­vention, Dodd led a South-wide simultaneous crusade with “the ideal of at least one revival in every church throughout the South in 1945.” Especially noteworthy, his detailed plans for organiz­ing the yearlong South-wide simultaneous crusade … [Read more...]