October 28, 2026
RICHMOND, Ky. (KT) – Jason Hay admits that he reluctantly agreed to meet Leo Lytle for lunch. But he left calling an afternoon with Lytle’s “Crosses Across America” ministry one of the “coolest evangelistic experiences I’ve had in my life.”
Hay, an evangelism strategist with the Kentucky Baptist Convention, met the 71-year-old former pastor a few months ago after Lytle called the KBC to share his ministry’s success. Evangelism team leader Michael Cabell asked whether someone could meet with him, and Hay volunteered.
Lytle pulls a 16-foot trailer carrying 700 handmade wooden crosses, each inscribed with “Jesus is Lord.” A sign on the back reads: “FREE CROSSES. CALL: I’LL PULL OVER,” along with his phone number.
The calls come quickly — and usually lead to conversations.
“While we’re eating, we were interrupted every five minutes,” Hay said. “He said, ‘Jump in the van, we will set up.’ We pulled up in the parking lot, hammered two signs in the ground that said ‘Free crosses,’ and waited. This was a busy intersection, and the lot wasn’t easy to get in and out of. But they started coming. I couldn’t believe it.”
Hay led one young man to Christ after handing him a 3-foot cross and asking what it meant to him.
“Then I asked if I could tell him what the cross means to me. The kid weeps his way to Christ. I gave him some devotional material and told him about a local church.”
When a van carrying people from Eastern Kentucky University’s Baptist Campus Ministry students arrived to collect crosses, Hay enlisted their help.
“I said, ‘I need your help to come and pray with people.’ We could not keep up with the number of people.”
For Lytle, it was another day in a ministry that has taken him to all 50 states and led to more than 6,500 gospel conversations.
A Shreveport, Louisiana, native, Lytle built doors and windows at a New Orleans millwork operation while completing his degree at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He pastored Baptist churches for 33 years, mostly in Louisiana and Texas, and taught “Evangelism Explosion,” an internationally known gospel training program.
He entered full-time evangelism eight-and-a-half years ago.
“My intent was to have a message that would give me opportunities to preach across America,” he said.
A fellow pastor suggested giving wooden crosses to churches, but congregations were unsure what to do with them. Then strangers began approaching Lytle at gas stations and along roadsides, drawn by the crosses in his trailer.
Retired volunteers across the country, called “Cross Men” and “Cross Women,” make the crosses. Lytle’s friend Vic Bass organized a team that began producing them in large quantities over the past decade. They have made more than a million crosses, he said.
Lytle’s wife, Valerie Cup-Lytle, a former journalist and labor and delivery nurse, shares the gospel alongside him. They co-authored “CROSS-ing America: Sharing Jesus Across the Nation,” which includes practical guidance on sharing the gospel.
“Two things I like about it, first is not having to knock on doors,” he said. “I pastored 33 years, and that was kind of the way it worked. Secondly, because (they're) coming to get a cross, it puts us in an immediate spiritual conversation.”
Lytle asks those who stop a “diagnostic question” from his evangelism training: Have they reached a point where they know for certain they would go to heaven if they died today?
If they express doubt, he offers an invitation.
“If you’d like to hear how you can be sure, I’d love to share it with you — but that’s your call. No pressure.”
The conversation takes about four minutes, and most agree to listen. Lytle estimates about one in 10 people who call or stop are unsure whether they would go to heaven.
“It shouldn’t work,” Hay said. “Why would a lost person stop to get that? I’m a believer, and I wouldn’t stop to get it. But they stopped. These people are tickled to death, happy to talk. It is the single coolest evangelism experience I’ve had in my life of everything I have ever tried.”
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This article appeared in Kentucky Today.
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