On September 8-15, 2024, churches and individuals are encouraged to pray, promote and support Texas Baptists ministries and missionaries serving and sharing the Gospel around the state and world.
Week of Prayer for Texas Missions
2023 Week of Prayer Stories
Church Starting Replants
A Church Starting Replant is bigger than revitalizing a church – it is the rebirth of a congregation and can involve drastic changes to help the church restart. Through your gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering, Texas Baptists is able to develop replanting partnerships with churches in decline.
Pray
Pray for the patience and strength of the churches being replanted as it typically means a lot of change.
Lift up the health of the pastors and families.
Ask the Lord to help church replants find the right strategies in planning and that the replanted churches “will be joined together in Christ to grow and build itself up in love, as each part does its work.” (Ephesians 4:16)
Women's Build Project
Through your gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions, WMU of Texas is able to build a home each year in South Texas in partnership with Buckner International. This year, a team of women volunteers will travel to the Rio Grande Valley to build our 13th home.
Pray
Pray that the family selected to receive the home will see the love of Christ from the volunteers and choose to follow Jesus as their Savior.
Petition the Lord for the safety and health of the WMU of Texas volunteers during the annual home build.
Pray that the WMU of Texas volunteers will be a witness to the community and open the door for more effective sharing of the gospel, remembering that “unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain.” (Psalm 127:1)
PAVE Ministry for Ethnic Minorities
Through your gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions, PAVE Ministry is able to partner with Texas Baptists pastors for revitalization training, certifications, and resources.
Pray
Ask the Lord to bring healing to congregations who have experienced the pain of a dying church.
Beseech God to bring unity and protect churches from division in the revitalization process.
Pray for God to give Texas Baptists and the pastors of the churches impacted by this project “complete knowledge of His will, and spiritual wisdom and understanding, so their lives honor and please the Lord, and produce every kind of good fruit while they grow as they learn to know God better and better.” (Colossians 1:9-12)
House Church Ministries
Through your gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions, the Texas Baptists Center for Missional Engagement is able to train and assist pastors in starting churches in homes and apartment complexes.
Pray
Ask God to send more workers who are called to communities across Texas to begin House Churches.
Petition the Lord to call out young people to pastor these churches.
Pray that people will open their homes so that the gospel will cover Texas, just as the early church went “day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, always teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah.” (Acts 5:42)
Human Trafficking
Through your gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions, the Texas Baptists Center for Cultural Engagement is able to support ministries working to end human trafficking in Texas.
Pray
Human Trafficking is highly prevalent in Texas, as Texas ranks second in the nation in human trafficking. Pray for total (mind, body, and soul) healing for victims of human trafficking.
Pray for wisdom for ministries who respond to those rescued out of human trafficking.
“What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) Pray for increased awareness of the signs of human trafficking and ways individuals can actively participate in ending human trafficking.
Valley Baptist Missions Education Center
Through your gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions, the Valley Baptist Missions Education Center (VBMEC) is able to educate and train people who have been called into ministry.
Pray
Pray that the love of Christ will shine as mission groups work to repair homes and churches.
Ask the Lord for kingdom growth as pastors and future church leaders are educated at VBMEC.
Pray that the ministries of VBMEC will give birth to hope in Christ through these difficult times as “the Lord has anointed them to proclaim good news to the poor and bind up the brokenhearted.” (Isaiah 61:1)
MWBC Minister & Wives Retreat
Through your gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions, the Minnesota/Wisconsin Baptist Convention is able to provide ministers and their wives a time of sabbath rest.
Pray
Pray that pastors and their wives grow in their ability to discover God’s rhythm of rest in their busy lives.
Pray for the couples to learn sustainable habits of spiritual discipline, sabbath rest, and schedule/priority management.
Pray that these servants of God will not be legalistic about their lives and their failures but find the grace of God that gives freedom and joy. “I (the Lord) will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint.” (Jeremiah 31:25)
Border Community Outreach
Through your gifts to the Mary Hill Davis Offering for Texas Missions, Border Community Outreach ministries are able to meet the physical, emotional, spiritual, and social needs of the people living in the border cities.
Pray
Pray that BCO will have the needed resources to provide the basic needs of people arriving in the border cities.
The border faces many spiritual issues. Pray for the missionaries to have the power and wisdom to confront the enemy, especially when they share Jesus and His love.
“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) Pray for the missionaries to recognize God’s opportunities to show the love of Christ in these border communities.