By Allen Palmeri
Associate Editor
JEFFERSON CITY—Bob Loggins, prayer and spiritual awakening specialist for the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC), sees a 2010 Prayer Summit lineup that is brimming with hope.
“We have moved to another season in the life of our ministry here at the Missouri Baptist Convention,” said Loggins, referring to a series of nine prayer meetings set for May through November in every corner of the state.
“I believe we are on the verge of a season of reaping the blessings of God, and a part of that process is to understand who we are in Christ.”
Loggins envisions family-like gatherings at each setting where participants will feel free to come and go in prayer from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
“I want to hear children pray,” he said. “I want to see teenagers pray. I want to see families pray—adults pray. I want to see single people pray. I want to see college students pray. I want to see professional ministers pray. I want to see people who don’t even think they can pray pray, and talk to God in a way that we talk to each other, but we’re talking to God because He’s our heavenly Father, and He loves us dearly.
“In that, as we connect and pray together, I’m asking the Lord in the eight regions that there will be no less than five churches that will partner with us that will be churches that will simply say, ‘We want to encourage you to come to the Prayer Summit.’”
The first quarter of the year leading up to the first Prayer Summit on May 6 in Maryville is being devoted to preparation.
“What we’re doing here is cultivating the soil—getting things ready,” Loggins said. “I believe that in our convention now it is a time for us to experience the refreshing of God, and as we come together to pray, our prayers are going to be focused on genuinely speaking to our heavenly Father. They will be prayers not of complaint, but prayers of gratitude.”
Gripes tied to wrangling and political posturing won’t be tolerated at these Prayer Summits. Rather, positive confession of the attributes of God and His clear desire to advance His Kingdom through a people called Missouri Baptists will be evident, Loggins said. The Biblical point, Loggins noted, is that God has called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
“We belong to the Lord, and God wants to hear His children pray,” he said. “We will come to the Prayer Summits as little children, not as adults—not as people who know all the brilliance of prayer, and I’ve read all these books on prayer, and I know Blackaby, and I know Ravenhill, and I know Orr. We’re just going to come as a little bitty baby to sit in the lap of our heavenly Father and say, ‘Abba, Father, Daddy.’”
The intercession kicks off at Laura St. Baptist Church, Maryville, May 6. That will be the first of four Prayer Summits in May on the following dates: May 11, Calvary Baptist Church, Hannibal; May 18, Sterling Acres Baptist Church, Kansas City; and May 25, Baptist Building, Jefferson City.
A summer of prayer will then begin to sizzle June 29 at First Baptist Church, O’Fallon, leading into the following three meetings: Aug. 10, South Haven Baptist Church, Springfield; Aug. 17, First Baptist Church, Lebanon; and Aug. 24, First Baptist Church, Poplar Bluff.
The final Prayer Summit will take place in the Bootheel when First Baptist Church, Kennett, hosts a Nov. 30 event.
Loggins said he would like to see a spirit catch fire in Missouri where churches would want to bus in their prayer warriors—kind of like tourists getting excited to roll on into Branson for some family entertainment, or folks headed on out to Sikeston for a Lambert’s Café experience.
Above all, he said, no matter the environment or method, God’s House shall be called a House of Prayer (Matt. 21:13).
“We have Christ already in our midst, and we want to pray that way, believing that God has already heard our prayers,” Loggins said. “We’re going to be very confident in what we talk to our Lord about.”