MCKINNEY–Churches of Collin Baptist Association wanted to emphasize prayer, starting with their own neighborhoods. Now, their vision is expanding across the state.
The association launched Pray 4 Every Home to encourage Christians to pray for their neighbors in a convenient but powerful way.
Jeanette EdgarPray 4 Every Home is a web-based email prayer ministry that connects subscribers with their neighborhood. Participants plug in their name, email address and home address to the website. They receive a list of 100 people who live near them. Every day, they receive an email with five names and a topic of prayer for the day.
“It launched in February 2014, but the idea to use technology happened about two weeks before Thanksgiving in 2013,” associational communications director Jeanette Edgar said. “We had a burden to pray like we never had before.”
Edgar believes the church sometimes gets too caught up in its members and forgets to reach beyond its walls. Christians are called to love with Christ’s love, and that means loving their neighbors, she added.
“As we pray, over time, those people become real. You have chances to care for them and interact with them,” Edgar said.
Eric WhitmorePray 4 Every Home can be either a churchwide or an individual ministry. Church leaders can access materials here. Resources include a sermon series for pastors to preach.
“There are no limits to what God can do with this if we’re willing and available to him,” Edgar said regarding the future of the prayer ministry. “I’m excited to see how he can blow us away.”
The movement focuses on three core values—give credit to God, see God-sized things happen, and watch the emphasis become a movement, not a temporary program.
Sign up for our weekly edition and get all our headlines in your inbox on Thursdays
When Eric Whitmore of the Baptist General Convention of Texas chaplaincy office learned about this new ministry, he came alongside the associational leaders to help spread it across Texas.
God is expanding this idea to pray for neighbors into something much bigger than what anyone could imagine, Edgar said.
“We believe that turning our hearts in prayer to him with a focus on where he has placed us,” she said. “We love Christ first, and then we love our neighbors as ourselves.”
We seek to connect God’s story and God’s people around the world. To learn more about God’s story, click here.
Send comments and feedback to Eric Black, our editor. For comments to be published, please specify “letter to the editor.” Maximum length for publication is 300 words.