Image courtesy of Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.
DALLAS– Those attending the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Dallas this year are urged to not miss an opportunity to dedicate time for intentional personal prayer, said T.J. Johnson, senior pastor of Tri-County Baptist Church in Damascus, Md.
The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention has set up a prayer room and are encouraging those at the meeting to sign up to spend 15 minutes in intentional prayer. You can sign up on their website, www.sbtexas.com/prayer, and select “Register” at the bottom of the SBC Prayer Room section.
“The prayer room this year will be an exciting journey of prayer — from connecting prayer in the home and church to taking the Gospel to the ends of the earth,” said the organizers. “We have broken prayer segments into 15 minutes. We are asking people to volunteer for one or more 15-minute prayer segments. We are seeking to cover the Pastor’s Conference and the annual meeting with prayer. Will you pray 15 minutes?”
“As you plan on spending time hearing God’s word preached, building relationships, and finding new tools and resources to reach your community and disciple your people, make sure to set aside time to draw on the greatest resource available to us through prayer,” urged Johnson, who has a passion for mobilizing people to pray.
“After going to the SBC annual meeting three of the four previous years, one thing stood out starkly to me. At any given moment there were thousands of people milling about the exhibit area seeking resources to help them in ministry and at best only a handful in the prayer room,” he said.
“Last year in Phoenix I spent a few hours in the prayer room over four days and never saw more than three other people there. I decided this year that I was going to try and do something about it,” Johnson added.
He contacted Ted Elmore from the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, who was running the prayer room and asked how he could help. Together, they seek to fill the prayer room for ongoing prayer throughout the convention.
The prayer room will be located in the back of Hall F in the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas. It is open from Sunday at 6pm through Wednesday at 5pm. Please come pray when you like and as often as you like. Scripture reminds us, “The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect” (James 5:16b, CSB).