A mix of ministers and laity, men and women numbering nearly 170 kneeled together during A Day of Prayer for South Carolina Baptists – an event one of the participating pastors called “a true Sabbath for me” – on Oct. 28 at White Oak Conference Center near Winnsboro.
“It accomplished what we expected, as people came together to pray,” said Ron Barker, evangelism and prayer strategist with the evangelism team of the SCBC, which sponsored the event lasting from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. “We were happy to see people interested in praying.”
Barker said a “movement of God” is needed in the lives of individual South Carolina Baptists as well as in the South Carolina Baptist Convention as a body. “Repentance needs to be personal before it can be corporate,” he said.
Barker said his team now will turn its attention to encouraging pastors to take the lead in launching a special day of prayer or even a solemn assembly in their own churches near the first of the year.
“We will be sending materials to our churches with suggestions on how to do that,” he said.
At the opening of the event at White Oak, Barker called attention to the single-item agenda – “to pray.” He called on participants in the Day of Prayer to “seek God exclusively and to do it earnestly and expectantly.”
Speakers for the event were former Southern Baptist Convention presidents Jimmy Draper, retired president of LifeWay Christian Resources, and Jim Henry, pastor emeritus of First Baptist Church in Orlando.
Draper mentioned the four so-called “great awakenings” in this country during which “God intervened in a powerful way that transcended denominationalism.”
The awakenings began, he emphasized, as believers desired to “seek the face of God,” adding, “They did not pray for the lost, they prayed for themselves. The problem is with us. We must identify ourselves with the sins of the world.”
Henry said that believers should pray to “be alert to opportunities for sharing the gospel – ready to sow, water, or reap.”
He echoed the words of a chorus that expressed the prayer, “Lord, lead me to some soul today, and teach me, Lord, just what to say.”
Our prayer, he continued, should be, “Lord, help us to see and love people as you see and love them, and when you open the door, to share the living water with them.”
Henry said many Christians are “too busy with what does not matter in the long run.”
The critical need for today, Draper said, “is for the church to be together. On the way to the cross, Jesus prayed for unity among believers. The spirit of unity is what Jesus is looking for in us. Many don’t know what unity looks like.”
Tim Williams, pastor of Roebuck Baptist Church, voted to “do this more often,” speaking of the Day of Prayer. He added, “I couldn’t help but think how different our churches, associations, and state and national conventions would be if we spent less time meeting to decide who gets to be ‘king of the hill’ and more time in prayer, focused on God’s agenda.”
Anderson Mill Road Baptist Church pastor D.J. Horton said, “Just a few hours to stop, listen, think, meditate – and most importantly pray – are an irreplaceable necessity in the lives of most pastors. We become so busy about the work of ministry that we fail to hear from the God of ministry. Most, if not all, of our greatest conflicts and disagreements among ourselves can be directly linked to the lack of unhindered and unwavering devotion in our daily communion with God.”
Retired pastor Randall Jones from Conway described the content of the presentations by Draper and Henry as “excellent,” adding, “I was pleased that such a large number of pastors and laymen attended the Day of Prayer with the belief that God is the answer for the problems that we face as a denomination.”
Sam Davis, an associate pastor at First Baptist Church in Spartanburg, called the Day of Prayer a “sweet time of fellowship and reminder of what God desires to do in and through each life. And how incredible to sit at the feet of Drs. Henry and Draper, two spiritual giants and godly leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention, to be challenged to personal revival for the purposes of God.”