Praying for Sister Churches

Prayer is a powerful tool, yet there is a tendency to isolate it to our own individual churches. In an effort to expand the power of prayer, a resolution was adopted at the 2014 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting "that the messengers to this meeting encourage churches experiencing cycles of health to pray for and partner with both established and newly planted churches that are struggling so that together, experiencing His strength through our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:10), we can more effectively reach our neighbors and our nation with the Gospel."

This resolution was a response to a growing number of churches taking action and praying for local sister churches. Emmanuel Baptist Church in Carlinville, Ill., is one such church.

Noticing the need for unity among local churches, Emmanuel began praying for sister churches in its local Baptist association on a weekly basis. The church formats its strategy by praying for three churches and their respective pastors each week, rotating the list to pray for all 27 churches in the association by name multiple times each year. Keep reading

This is a good practice for a cluster of churches in the same geographic area to adopt whatever the denomination the cluster of churches belongs to, whatever the cluster of churches itself is called--a deanery, district, local association, or mission area.