IN FOCUS: Pray for ‘something transformational’

Fort Worth is a place for big dreams. As we gather there for our 2008 Baptist General Convention of Texas annual meeting Nov. 10-11, let’s pray God will give us a dream as big as the needs of Texas.

It will not be the first time this happened in Fort Worth. In 1951, Texas Baptists set an ambitious goal to win 250,000 people to Christ. “The Billy Graham revival in Fort Worth in 1950 inspired William Fleming, wealthy Fort Worth oilman, to pray about the unchurched multitudes in Texas,” Leon McBeth writes in Texas Baptists: A Sesquicen-tennial History: “Fleming and his wife felt the Lord had revealed to them that Texas Baptists should plan a special evangelistic campaign. Mrs. Fleming wanted to set a goal at 1 million, but Fleming scaled it back to a quarter of that.”

Fleming, president of the BGCT, convinced Executive Director J. Howard Williams and C. Wade Freeman, head of the evangelism department. The goal was almost five times more than Texas Baptists had reached in any other year.

“There is no space here to tell of all the prayer meetings, inspirational rallies, organizational meetings, district and associational conferences, personal soul-winning clinics, posters, Baptist Standard promotional pieces and personal testimonies that went into that campaign. At the end of the year, they had not met this ambitious goal, but they did baptize 62,086 new converts, about 5,000 more than the year before,” McBeth reports.

The annual meeting is a time for business, reports, inspiration and fellowship. The theme for this year, Texas, Our Texas, will bring into focus Why Texas? Which Texas? Whose Texas? The sessions will be led by our officers—President Joy Fenner, First Vice President Mike Massar and Second Vice President Jeff Raines, who have guided us so effectively this year.

God certainly has blessed Texas Baptists. Our resources include churches, universities, hospitals, children’s homes, retirement centers, chaplains and student ministers. Yet the needs of Texas are overwhelming. Almost half the state claims no religious affiliation. One million Texans don’t know where their next meal will come from.

By God’s grace, we must commit to share the hope of Christ with every person in Texas in his or her own language and context by Resurrection Sunday 2010. This is something God obviously already desires. Each person in Texas is someone God created, loves and is calling to himself. When we meet with each other, we cannot forget about the least of those among us. Who are the lost and forgotten of Texas?

The annual meeting must be a time of prayer for God to convict us of our need to intercede, for God to open our eyes to the opportunities surrounding us, and for God to bring the lost to himself. The meeting must be a time of commitment to share the hope of Christ with our families, friends and even strangers. It also must be a time of committing our resources to share with those who have too little.

It’s time for another big dream. Pray that God will do something transformational in our midst.

Randel Everett is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board.