Greetings,
A group of prayer leaders came together to continue to discuss development of SBC prayer life. Out of this comes multiple issues, questions and suggested directives. The following is my response, thoughts and answers to some of the questions:
1. ASSESSMENT:
How do you know where to lead or take people if you don't know where they are. The assessment is to define a structure of where we are, and from that develop where we want to go.
Assessment of Prayer Among the SBC:
The Targets to be Assessed are the 5 Major Areas of SBC Life:
1. Pastor; personal & his close prayer partners (I believe too many do not have one)
2. Church and Laity; this is the corporate sense as well as small group;
3. Associations;
4. State Conventions;
5. SBC Entities - 6 seminaries; NAMB; IMB; ERLC; Executive Committee; BGR;
The area of help for these 5 areas of SBC to be developed and set up to build, promote and continue a spirit of prayer among the body. These areas are:
--personal;
--local;
--regional;
--corporate/national;
Suggested ways to assess:
1. Form that gathers info on state of prayer life;
Composed of:
--time (duration) & topics of prayer life; place; frequency;
2. Gather from broad section of each respective 5 Areas Targeted:
Impossible to gather all, but a broad synopsis of overview of general practice of prayer is the purpose of this.
3. Conclusion: 'This is where we are at. This is where we want to go".
Granted there are some preconceived notions of where we are due to our decades of service among SBC life. Preconceived notions are not biased or prejudice, but a general rule of thumb.
2. What is the Need for Such an Assessment at This Time
The status of the SBC convention of some alarming trends and situations:
1. baptisms have continued to decrease;
2. holiness within the church is decreased;
3. larger number of pastors and leaders found in sinful choices and leaving ministry;
4. ease and contentment with this world rather than preparing for heaven and His kingdom; temporal and carnal, rather than eternal and spiritual;
5. prayer life within the individual and church is a rare thing; the prayer life of the SBC does not bother hell one bit.
We are in a state of emergency. yet, there is not much urgency for our dire situation. And this is evident by the lack of fervency in our prayer lives.
In our lifetime, 20 - 40 years of this generation we have gone from God's warning; to judgements; to remedial judgements to epidemics.
Our very future is called into jeopardy now. And the one people who have the answer, the church, is not responding to this most dire situation upon us.
The state of empathy, is that the hand of God has shown itself, and has written on the wall. There may be many that cannot interpret or understand it, but the message is still the same. God always has His Daniel to reveal the mysteries of God to men. The weightier message to be revealed is 'you are weighed in the balances and found wanting'.
The understanding of this, that I believe in large portions of SBC life is unknown and unsaid, needs to be conveyed. And as it is conveyed, it is my firm belief that the Holy Spirit of God will awaken, will quicken His body to finally do what we should have been doing all along - humble ourselves; pray; seek Him and turn from our wicked ways.
Until
Dan
Started: July 31, 2018
Continued: August 1;
Finished:
Wow Dan, extensive note taking.
ReplyDeleteMay I quote you on my blog?
"We are in a state of emergency. Yet, there is not much urgency for our dire situation. And this is evident by the lack of fervency in our prayer lives. "