About The Cross Ministry, Inc.
The Cross Ministry, Inc. is a charitable, non-profit organization which was officially established October, 2000. It does have tax-exempt status. 2021 Eureka Road Batesville, Mississippi 38606 is the organization's address.
All of the directors, active and ex-officio, are godly Christian people. Eleven men and one woman serve on the active board. The ex-officio member is the Honorable Governor Ronnie Musgrove, the governor of the state of Mississippi.
This organization oversees the administration of any funds collected and is charged with assisting David A. Ball, M. D., the founder, in attaining the goals of winning as many lost people as possible as well as enlightening the Christian community through this dramatic production, "The Crucifixion and the Death of a Man Called Jesus".
Dr. David Ball, the founder, has presented for approximately ten years a simpler version of "The Crucifixion and the Death of a Man Called Jesus". He became convicted in the early part of the year 2000 that the LORD wanted this presentation to be enlarged and to become a more dramatic production. This has required the formation of a tax-exempt organization with a board of directors.
TCM is dependent upon donations and love-offerings taken usually at the end of the presentation. A donor's contribution is tax-exempt, and can be documented for him or her.
There is a traveling team consisting primarily of Dr. and Mrs. Ball, a sound tech and a light tech, at least seven men to set-up and to strike the production and one or two bus drivers — depending on the distance traveled. This team requires lodging and meals. Usually its lodging needs are met in motel rooms, and its meals in local restaurants. The team will make its own reservations with assistance from the local church unless otherwise arranged.
Biographical Information: Dr. David Ball
David A. Ball, M. D., born September 13, 1942, is a native of Columbia, Mississippi. For the past thirty-two years, he and his wife, the former Patricia Odom, have resided in Batesville, Mississippi. They have three adult children. Dr. and Mrs. Ball are members of Batesville First Baptist Church where he has served the deaconate being its chairman, the pulpit committee being its chairman, Sunday School superintendent, a thirty-year Sunday School teacher, and other organizational positions.
Dr. Ball graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1964 and the University of Mississippi Medical Center in 1967. He did his internship in General Medicine at Lackland Air Force Bace, San Antonio, Texas in 1967-68. While in San Antonio he also graduated from the Aerospace Medicine-Flight Surgery School at Brooke Air Force Base. In the end of 1968 and the beginning of 1969, he was a flight surgeon at Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Alabama. While at Maxwell, he received orders for Vietnam where he served as flight surgeon until June, 1970. Upon leaving the military, he joined a group of medical doctors at Batesville Clinic, Batesville, Mississippi, where he has practiced general-family medicine for thirty-two years; in its early years Dr. Ball's partnership of doctors owned Batesville Hospital, one of two hospitals in the town.
In community life Dr. Ball has also been active. He served as a member of the Advisory Board for the United Southern Bank, which now is a member of the Union Planters Bank system. Chief of staff for the South Panola Community Hospital emergency room was a position that he held for twenty-three years. Dr. Ball is the author of and one of the founding doctors for the Convenient Care Clinic, an outpatient as well as a diagnostic clinic located in Batesville, Mississippi. He has been preceptor for medical students primarily for the University of Mississippi Medical Center but for several of the osteopathic schools as well. Dr. Ball taught the ACLS course at The Med, a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, known for its treatment of trauma patients.
Public speaking and counseling are activities that he enjoys. Regularly Dr. Ball is sought to be a Christian counselor not only for his patients but also for others in the community. Because he believes in treating the whole man, he has been lay-speaker in many churches and for hospital chaplainry programs.
In March, 1989 Dr. Ball wrote an article entitled "The Crucifixion and the Death of a Man Called Jesus" which was published as the cover article of The Journal of the Mississippi State Medical Association.
For approximately 12 years, Dr. Ball traveled the southeastern United States and spoke about "The Crucifixion and the Death of a Man Called Jesus". His speeches detail what he thinks are the medical aspects of this critical point in the Christian faith.
In 2000 Dr Ball founded The Cross Ministry, through which he developed a multimedia presentation of "The Crucifixion and Death of a Man Called Jesus". With a crew of 12, Dr. Ball now travels across the country doing a more elaborate presentation with theatrical lights and fog, sound, a slide presentation and live narration and music.
Dr. Ball is a member of COSBE (Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists) and is currently the Managing Editor of a developing publishing company called COSBE Publishing which publishes The Voice of the Evangelist, a magazine featuring Southern Baptist evangelists.
