Dear Reader, allow me to invite you to a very special, convention-wide prayer gathering Monday night, Nov. 13, from 8:30–9:30 p.m. at Shandon Baptist Church in Columbia. We’ll sing a couple of songs, but this is not a praise and worship gathering. We’ll shake hands and give hugs, but this is not a fellowship gathering. We’ll have coffee and snacks in the lobby, but this is not a meal gathering. We’re going to pray. No bells. No whistles. Just Christ’s people on their knees and faces before God in heartfelt, focused, faith-filled prayer. Imagine with me our whole South Carolina Baptist family, packed into a single room to call out to God together. We need you there — pastors, deacons, associate staff, Sunday school teachers, and everyday Baptists alike.
On Nov. 13–14, 2023, messengers from South Carolina Baptist churches will gather at Shandon Baptist Church for worship, fellowship, decision making, and encouragement. I pray your congregation has already selected its messengers and is planning to send a full slate, along with a bus load of guests, to our annual meeting. Historically, the South Carolina Baptist Convention is just that — a convening. Invested, cooperating S.C. Baptists gather annually to agree on the big picture of our cooperative mission; to direct our shared mission investments; and to select officers, board members, and committee members who will supervise our missional engagement through the coming year. President Albert Allen of First Baptist Church, Newberry, has put together a moving and powerful convention program directing our hearts to the nations and calling us to go. I want to see you there.
But I don’t want you to miss this special prayer moment in our gathering. Carve out time for the prayer meeting at 8:30 p.m. Monday night. I believe God has laid upon my heart some important directional foci for our Great Commission cooperation in the current and coming generations. But the best laid plans of men are destined for destruction unless the Holy Spirit breathes on them. I long to see God do what only He can do through our cooperation. So, we’re going to ask Him for exactly that, together.
Toward the end of Acts 4, the church in desperation gathered to pray. The culture was changing, the political climate was dire, and the task before them was vast. In gathered prayer, they asked God for boldness in sharing the gospel while He demonstrated Himself strong in the world around them. God was on mission to save Jerusalem and the whole world through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The church in Jerusalem was burdened to be on mission with Him. “When they had prayed,” Dr. Luke recounts, “the place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God boldly.” Perhaps what S.C. Baptists need today, more than a new strategy or a new slogan, is an earth-shaking, gospel-mobilizing encounter with the God of the Ages.
I mentioned during my address at the called convention March 20 at Shandon Baptist Church that as Christ’s people, prayer is not part of our program. Prayer is the program. When we gather in corporate prayer, we attune our hearts to God’s, and He directs our minds and our affections toward His prerogatives. If we are going to lean into this next season of Great Commission advance together, we need to call out to God together. So, let’s ask God to work wonders in and through our Great Commission cooperation.
Bring your Sunday school class. Bring your staff. Bring your deacon body. Bring them all. In gathered prayer, let’s ask God for boldness in sharing the gospel while He demonstrates Himself strong in the world around us. God is on mission to save South Carolina and the whole world through the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. S.C. Baptists, let’s gather in prayer Nov. 13 to cultivate a corporate burden to be on mission with Him. And let’s expect that God will shake the ground beneath us as we do.