NASHVILLE—The month-long prayer focus “In All Things Pray” will kick off the new year across the Southern Baptist Convention.
Acts 1:8 and 2 Chronicles 7:14 steer the focus of the prayer emphasis to individual families, communities, churches, the United States and the World, according to the webpage InAllThingsPray.net, established as a prayer resource and guide on the Southern Baptist Convention website.
“The resources and links on this page are created by prayer teams of PrayerLink members and are directly related to the ministries of a state Baptist convention or an SBC entity,” according to the site. “These are made available to the wider Southern Baptist family with the hope and prayer that they will help spur a movement of God as we prayer together for the lost, for our nation, and for the world.” PrayerLink is a network of state convention and SBC entity prayer leaders.
The page offers a prayer format opening with 10 minutes of Scripture reading, public leadership and worship; continuing with 20 minutes of receiving and voicing prayer concerns, and closing with 30 minutes of guided and conversational prayer individually, in groups and corporately.
An official event on the SBC calendar, the “Call to Prayer” gained momentum from the 2010 Great Commission Task Force report adopted by messengers to the SBC annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., and has been an annual focus of the calendar since 2012.
Prayer Guide
The In All Things Pray prayer guide opens the first emphasis, “Myself and My Family,” on Jan. 1, 2017.
The first week encourages Southern Baptists to be willing volunteers in evangelism, to pray daily for family members, and to solicit names of unchurched and lost family members from congregations to allow the names to be lifted up corporately.
Jan. 8 opens the second emphasis of “My Community and Friends,” and draws from the CrossRoads Prayer Evangelism ministry resource at at InAllThingsPray.net.
In praying for “My Church Ministries,” the week of Jan. 15, churches are encouraged to pray for their evangelistic outreaches scheduled through June, such as Vacation Bible School, and to pray by name for church ministry teams and committees.
The week of Jan. 22 focuses on “My Country and its Peoples,” standing on 1 Timothy 2:1-6, interceding for the nation and elected leaders, praying for the Lord to send workers to the harvest, praying for racial reconciliation, and praying for the diverse populations in the nation.
“My World and its People Groups” is the month’s last emphasis beginning Jan. 2 and asking the Lord to call out international missionaries from the congregation, to give divine wisdom and guidance to International Mission Board trustees in guiding international ministry, and to extend mercy and wisdom to missionaries in the field.
Additional resources are available at InAllThingsPray.net. (BP)