Texas Baptists pray for hurting, lost

DALLAS—Texas Baptists made Jan. 31 the Day of Hope and Prayer, petitioning God to provide avenues for churches to help the hurting and hungry and to take the hope of Christ to all people by Easter 2010, the goal of Texas Hope 2010.

Tom Billings, executive director of the Houston-based Union Baptist Association, promoted the Sunday prayer emphasis to the churches in his area through a weekly prayer e-mail.

Tracie Jernigan, associate pastor of worship and the arts at Willow Meadows Baptist Church in southwest Houston, said one of the church’s prayer leaders, Ginger Hill, saw the prayer e-mail and urged the church to be involved with the day of prayer.

“The prayer emphasis is really a strong reminder to people that any person you encounter in Houston has a different story, and many are very different (from the Christian) one that we have. But we are called to be who we are, showing people who Jesus is in the process,” Jernigan said.

“We took some time in both services to pray, and we talked about how God is a God of justice and how he has called us to go out and feed the hungry and help the sick. I wanted to be very intentional about singing songs and calling people to live out justice in their lives.”

In the Basin Baptist Network in the Midland/Odessa area, Director of Missions Donny Cortamilia said many churches such as First Baptist Church in Midland and Second Baptist Church in Odessa already have been delivering Texas Hope multimedia compact discs with gospel presentations to their communities. So, participating in the Day of Hope and Prayer was just the next step for these churches in reaching non-Christians.

Greg Ammons, pastor of First Baptist Church in Garland, said the day of prayer was a natural effort following the church’s recent delivery of more than 700 gospel compact discs to the area around the church in an attempt to share the hope of Christ with their neighbors. In addition, the church is attempting to help with poverty issues in the area through the church’s benevolence ministry, Friendship House, and weekly English-as-a- Second-Language and GED classes.

“This is about reaching our state with the gospel of Jesus and eliminating hunger in our state,” Ammons said. “I pray through these efforts that the church will develop a greater heart for evangelism and ministry. They already have a great heart for that, but I hope that they will develop a greater heart personally for evangelism and eradicating hunger.”

For Bruce Prindle, pastor of First Baptist Church in Midlothian, the prayer emphasis fell on a day he was preaching on the church’s Vision 2020, teaching the church to become more involved with taking compassion and the gospel to people in their community and to others around the world.

Prindle challenged the church to have a “farsighted” vision of global missions and a “nearsighted vision,” taking the hope of Christ to their community.

Billie Downing, director of the Lubbock area Woman’s Missionary Union, rallied churches to plan a prayer walk for the hurting and hungry. The event was scheduled Jan. 30, but due to snowy and icy weather conditions, the prayer walk was postponed until Feb. 20. 

The walk will begin at Wayland Baptist University’s north campus in Lubbock and end at Bacon Heights Baptist Church with a dove release. The WMU group also is gathering cans to help fill the food pantry at Mission Lubbock, a local ministry that provided food, clothing and encouragement to more than 3,700 families in the Lubbock area in the past year.