Dakota Baptists Launch Prayer Initiative: PrayDakotas 2024
Dakota Baptist Convention president Josh Brown has chosen “We Always Pray” as the 2024 theme for the DBC (see related article). Drawn from 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12, this will serve as the theme for the September Baker Offering and the October annual meeting in Williston, ND.
Following this theme, Brown and DBC Executive Director Fred MacDonald are launching a year-long prayer initiative calling Dakota Baptists, “to a year of persistent prayer for each other, for the lost, and for the advancement of the DBC mission to strengthen established churches and start new churches. The initiative provides eight tools that serve as different ways for Dakota Baptists to engage in persistent prayer.
As part of the initiative, an email address has been created as a unique address to send prayer requests. This email address is [email protected]. Prayer needs from the various churches of the DBC can be sent to this address. They will be received at the DBC office and prayed over by DBC staff.
MacDonald also indicated that he will be looking for a team of prayer volunteers to pray over these needs and respond to them with a word of encouragement. “I envision this to be a team of godly men and women from our churches to serve as prayer warriors for their brother and sisters across the Dakotas.”
Other tools for the initiative will be developed throughout the year. One of these tools will be to produce a 30-day devotional to coincide with the 2024 Baker State Offering. These will be ready and available at no cost to DBC churches by early August.
Brown introduced three specific opportunities for DBC pastors and laypeople to be believers that can say, “we always pray.” He encouraged Dakota Baptists to immediately select another church somewhere in the Dakotas and “pray 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12 for that church and pastor.” Then to, “send that pastor a note saying that you prayed for him and his church.” Brown then challenged to continue doing that for a different church each week. He suggested that pastors might want to do this as a church body “publicly in your Sunday worship gathering so that your people get the joy of joining in.
Brown is going to work on developing a weekly Sunday night Zoom prayer meeting for pastors. He envisions this as a brief time at the end of each Lord’s Day when men of God could from time to time jump online and pray for each other as a way to, “water the gospel seeds we scattered earlier that day” and “bear one another’s burdens as we enter a new week.”
NOTE: Attached to this article is a complete description of the eight tools of PrayDakotas 2024.
Executive Director
Fred MacDonald