Plano church benefits from something old, something new

Posted: 4/18/08

Plano church benefits from
something old, something new

By George Henson

Staff Writer

PLANO—Prairie Creek Baptist Church in Plano used a pairing of new and old technologies to meet the needs of people its pews and also those in its surrounding neighborhoods. Pastor Bobby Bressman likened the plan to respiration—Bible in, reach out.

Prairie Creek partnered with Faith Comes By Hearing to secure audio New Testaments for the congregation, recorded on CDs in an MP3 format. Church members were challenged to read or listen to the entire New Testament, memorize a promise of God and attend a small group Bible study once a week.

The goal was not for growth in numbers but a growth in spirit, Bressman said—revival in its truest form. At the beginning of the year, members were given small cards folded into tents. If they wanted prayer for revival in their own life, they were asked to write just their initials at the top of the card. If they knew a non-Christian who needed prayer for his or her salvation, they put that person’s initials below the fold.

“We didn’t put any private information on those cards—no names. We didn’t want to take the chance of embarrassing anybody. God already knows their names,” Bressman said.

Twenty days after the kickoff of the Bible reading/listening emphasis, the church began 20 days of calling 5,000 homes in the immediate area of the church. The church received those names from Harvest Unlimited.

Harvest Unlimited is a ministry that supplies churches not only with names and telephone numbers of people living nearby, but also provides training and resources to the congregation to best utilize the numbers.

“It was really great,” Bressman said. “They come in and train your people on how to make effective phone calls and provide the computer programming for tracking the results.”

In addition to making invitations to a “harvest Sunday” meal, callers also invited people with whom they spoke to tell them about any prayer requests they had. A prayer team then prayed for the requests and sent a follow-up card.

Prairie Creek’s experience with the call and prayer centers was tremendous, Bressman said. While make the calls, they spoke with 2,279 adults—41 percent who said they had no church affiliation. Of those unchurched households, 43 percent said they were interested in more information about the church.

“When we spoke to someone who obviously had a relationship with a church, we told them: ‘We don’t want to interrupt your worship at all, but we have a team here that is ready for any prayer requests you might have. Is there something we can pray with you about tonight?” he said.

More than 500 of the people spoken to told the caller of prayer requests the congregation was able to pray and follow up on—about 60 percent of those who attend churches and about half who did not attend churches gave the church things to pray with them about.

“And the interesting thing to me was that it wasn’t ‘pray for the troops in Iraq’ or ‘pray for the president.’ It was, ‘It’s a miracle you called today—my niece was diagnosed with leukemia today,’ or ‘My son died today.’ They were very specific prayer requests,” Bressman explained.

That evening a hand-written note was sent out by a member of the prayer team to let the person know someone had taken the request seriously, he added.

The prayer team also evaluated each request as to how much follow-up was needed.

“If someone told us, ‘Pray I can get these kids down to sleep,’ we did that, but it did not require a follow-up beyond that first evening. But if someone told us that they were searching for a job, we not only sent out that first note, but also maybe three others over a period of time,” Bressman explained.

One lady’s response to the invitation to the harvest dinner was particularly memorable to Bressman. “She told us: ‘I would love to come to the dinner, but someone shot my back door out. I can’t afford to replace it, and I’m afraid to leave my home unguarded.”

When Bressman told the congregation about the call, a collection immediately was taken to replace the door. Included in that collection was a donation by Bressman’s young son, who wanted to contribute what he had. When the pastor took the collection to her, and explained that they wanted to replace her door, she told him she had taken her utility money and replaced it because she was too afraid to wait.

“That’s fine,” Bressman told her. “We’ll pay your utilities.”

When the church received the woman’s utility bills, they totaled the exact amount collected by the offering.

“Without my son’s offering, it would have been short,” Bressman reflected.

The woman has been coming to Prairie Creek ever since, he added.

The church also spent concentrated times of prayer during Sunday services, he noted.

“I would say: ‘If you’re praying for revival, gather over here to the left. If you’re praying for a specific need in your life of the life of someone else, gather over here.’”

During that time, the tent cards were displayed across the front of the sanctuary as a physical reminder of the need for revival and salvation.

In addition to people invited to the harvest meal by the telephone team, the congregation was asked to also invite “just one.”

“We told them: ‘If we can call 5,000 strangers, can’t you call a friend or a neighbor? Can’t you call just one?”

The harvest dinner included those invited by the congregation as well as those on the telephone and prayer teams and the just ones. The dinner drew 145 people.

Also during the 40-day emphasis, 40 registered guests attended the church that averages about 215 in worship.

While the phone lists did come with a fee, Bressman said they would be used again and again in preparation for special events.

“What we’re finding is that a lot of people just need an invitation,” he said.