By Brian Blackwell, Message Staff Writer
BOSSIER CITY – Prayer took center stage for two-and-a-half hours Jan. 31 at First Bossier, as nearly 1,400 members of Northwest Louisiana Baptist Association churches gathered to cry out for spiritual awakening.
Those gathered for the Call to Prayer asked for repentance, revival, spiritual change, world missions and protection for the persecuted church.
Throughout the evening the First Bossier praise team and choir led worship through music.
At other times, testimonies were shared.
But, importantly, individuals, as well as pairs and sometimes groups prayed.
Lane Moore, NLBA director of missions, said he was building on previous prayer gatherings held in recent years in the state and nationally. For months he had prayed for a large gathering from the association’s churches just to pray for spiritual awakening. By the end of the evening, Moore said the movement of the Holy Spirit was evident.
“What we had was a great night where the association as a whole came together to worship and pray,” Moore told the Baptist Message after the prayer gathering. “Those who came got a snapshot of the diversity of our association’s churches, which were of different ethnic groups. It was a great unified night for all our churches in a time of designated, focused prayer.”
More than 1,400 people attended the Call to Prayer at First Baptist Church in Bossier City Jan. 31.
During Moore’s opening remarks, he prayed that those attending would never leave the same and that the gathering would be a difference maker for the churches in the association.
“When was the last time you gathered with hundreds of people on Sunday night and prayed for a movement of God in northwest Louisiana,” he said. “We have full confidence that tonight, God may do something.
“What if God chose this gathering tonight? What if God so chose a gathering where the hundreds that are here tonight saw God do something in our lives we have never seen before? With God all things are possible.”
Dennis Sims then posed the question “What if God heard us tonight?”
“What if God heard us confess our sin and humble ourselves before him?” asked Sims, pastor of Ellerbe Road Baptist Church in Shreveport. “What if tonight was the God moment that starts a massive God movement, not just for us in this room but for the entire evangelical world?”
Chuck Pourciau, pastor of Broadmoor Baptist Church in Shreveport, told the crowd the time to repent is now.
Pourciau pointed to Peter’s call for repentance in Acts 3 to stress the importance of repenting and turning away from one’s sins.
“Repent means to say I’m guilty, not I’m not guilty,” he said. “Repent means to say I am a sinner. But it goes beyond that.
“When I repent I say I am a sinner and I hate that I am a sinner,” he continued. “I hate that I have transgressed the will of my God and I don’t want to be a sinner again.
“Repent means to turn,” Pourcaiu said. “You can’t turn to God without turning from sin.”
Aaron Burgner, pastor of Summer Grove Baptist Church in Shreveport, said it’s time to be filled with God’s power.
“We need spiritual awakening today more than we’ve ever needed it,” he said. “Spiritual awakening will never happen until the power of God falls on us. We desperately need the power of God.”
Building on that, Louisiana Baptist Convention President Gevan Spinney told the crowd that now is indeed the time for revival and for the church to be awakened.
Spinney said that when Peter was commanded not to speak, he did just the opposite.
Likewise, Christians today should speak with boldness and in the end they, like the early Church, can be filled with the Holy Spirit.
“Church I want you to know we are a sleeping giant,” said Spinney, pastor of First Baptist Church in Haughton. “We have been asleep for a long time.
“And my prayer is that God would shake us and wake us and not fill us with a terrible resolve but fill us with his Holy Spirit,” Spinney continued. “And that we would go out filled with that spirit and tell this world with boldness about our Savior Jesus.”
Spiritual change
Randy Harper addressed the spiritual change that needs to take place in northwest Louisiana.
He said a change needs to occur not only with the growing number of people who aren’t attending worship services in a church but with leaders inside the church as well.
Small group prayer time, such as this one, were plentiful during a special prayer gathering Jan. 31 at First Bossier. Many from the Northwest Baptist Association of churches took part in the event.
“When God stirs his people to spiritual change, the most broken ones are the leaders,” said Harper, pastor of Bellaire Baptist Church in Bossier City. “God’s looking for brokenness in my heart, my preaching, the vision I have for my church and city and state and for the US.”
Revival, Harper said, begins in the heart where only God can see.
“We need a time for spiritual change,” he said. “Let it begin in the church leaders. Let it begin in the men and women of God tonight.”
Before closing the meeting with prayers for world missions and the persecuted church, Brad Jurkovich said that the church’s goal should not be to have the coolest ministry in the community but rather be a ministry.
He said that since Jesus is returning very soon, the mission of the church should be to go out to help the sick who desperately need Christ.
“Will we be able when we stand before God and others and say Jesus we did everything we could to point them to you?” said Jurkovich, who serves as pastor of First Bossier. “That had better be the passion of our heart.
“This world needs Jesus,” Jurkovich continued. “This nation is sick. And the only hope is the Lord.”
