Ellis Moore, Pastor of Georgia Avenue Baptist Church
Ellis Moore, senior pastor of Georgia Avenue Baptist Church in Silver Spring, Md., stressed the importance of prayer in a recent interview with BaptistLIFE.
He said, “God is at work around us, and we want to join Him and that’s first a relationship. Many times an inward focus causes us to see just what’s happening in our little part of the world. But God is at work in His world, and He wants to use us.
“That begins with prayer and God making it known to us the need there is, not only where we live, but in this great nation. We are in a decline of moral, spiritual values, and I believe God will judge us unless we repent.
“Many of the churches believe there is a political solution or an economic solution. Those problems in our culture are only a symptom. The real problem is that our nation has abandoned God in many places.”
The pastor shared about his Feb. 17 experience in prayer over the attempted removal of the name of God in the United States’ Pledge of Allegiance.
“The Lord stopped me in my prayer and emphasized and deeply impressed into me that the problem was not the darkness that was prevailing within our culture, but the lack of light.
“He is the Light of the World, and He wants that light to be shown through us—through our churches—and so the way we do that is to come humbly before Him, repent of our sin, refocus our hearts upon the reality He’s God, and His Son, the Lord Jesus, died, was buried and rose from the dead, and He is alive. He is victorious.
“We go out from that victory spreading His light, His love, His truth, His Gospel, and the power of the Holy Spirit. And it will amaze us, as it was in the early church, of what God will do in and through His people.
“He tells us, ‘Now unto Him who is inherently able to do exceedingly abundant above all that we ask or think according to his power that dwells within us’ (Ephesians 3:20). And that comes through an intimate relationship with Him—prayer to this gracious God.
So, as we begin this Embrace Silver Spring, maybe this is going to be what God uses to change His world for His glory!”