Carolyn Altman  

Our 40 Days of Prayer campaign was launched at the Annual Assembly in May 2021, ready for Churches to start in Semester 2.  Despite lockdown, over 30 Churches & Morling College participated in this, and currently nine Churches have stated their intention to run it in Semester 1, 2022. If your Church would like to run this in 2022, please download the material here.    

We encouraged churches to see this as an intergenerational initiative, and some great feedback with regard to incorporating children included:

• Narara Valley Baptist engaging children using a Prayer Bear.   
• Chester Hill Baptist organically discipling their children through working through the 40 Days booklet and praying together.   
• Georges River Life Church putting together Prayer Boxes for each child.  
• Read the stories and watch the videos here.  

Additionally, Churches sent feedback showing how effective this was for them including:  

• People who did not know how to pray before this campaign, learned to pray and developed the habit of praying through these 40 days.  
• Sisters and brothers from different language congregations prayed to God together in different languages.   
• The whole church has become more united.  
• Being encouraged to pray daily and prioritising spending time with God.  
• Getting closer with other members of the church as they shared and prayed together.   
• Read more about highlights Central Baptist Church had from participating here. Watch the feedback video from Dubbo Baptist Church here.  

Another highlight was initiating the Movement-Wide National Prayer Gatherings to pray for the COVID situation in both Australia and overseas. This brought together all Baptist Association States/Territories and Australian Baptist Ministries, as well as Morling College, Baptist Mission Australia, Baptist World Aid Australia, BaptistCare and BFS. This was the first time this has ever happened, and we are planning another one 1st March 2022, praying for an outpouring of God’s grace and power within our Baptist movement, around our nation and overseas.  

We also held Prayer Gatherings for NSW/ACT Baptists before the Special Assembly and Annual Assembly. We have held our first Prayer Gathering for Taskforce 1 & 2 and have more planned for 2022 as we seek God’s guidance on the matters arising from the Special Assembly.    

Finally, the Let’s Pray Together E-News has helped our faithful network of prayer partners to pray informatively, ensuring prayer underpins everything we do in our Baptist movement.