PHOENIX — A
resolution on prayer and repentance adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)
in Phoenix traces its roots to a
church’s revival experience in east Tennessee.
The resolution was initiated by Jamie Work, pastor of Candies
Creek Baptist Church
in Charleston, Tenn.,
and a member of the SBC Resolutions
Committee and the SBC Executive Committee.
Work’s proposed resolution — which grew out of six weeks of revival meetings at
Candies Creek — was edited by the Resolutions Committee and presented at the SBC
annual meeting.
In introducing the resolution to messengers June 15, Work said God turned an “11-day
summit into a six-week revival” at Candies Creek, and the revival is
continuing.
“As a result of corporate prayer and repentance, God is birthing us into a
brand-new church,” Work told the convention.
Work gave an extended testimony during the SBC
Executive Committee meeting June 13 prior to the SBC
annual meeting, recounting how Candies Creek spent weeks in prayer before the
initial April 10-20 meeting at the church led by Life Action Ministries, based
in Buchanan, Mich.
As a result of the Holy Spirit working in the lives of the people at Candies
Creek, there were 25 hours of public confession of sin, Work told the Executive
Committee.
“We are still dealing with what God has been saying to us. Our world has been
turned upside down,” he said.
In addition to the confession of sin by individuals, the church itself
confessed its corporate sin, the pastor said.
Sins confessed by the church, Work said, were prayerlessness; superficiality
with God and one another; failure to practice biblical, redemptive church
discipline; lukewarmness (a lack of commitment); preoccupation with mammon
(money and stuff); and programmatic worship (non-Spirit led).
What has happened at Candies Creek “hinged on prayer and repentance,” Work said
in an interview with the Baptist and Reflector, newsjournal of the Tennessee
Baptist Convention.
Though the revival meeting ended after six weeks, people are still meeting
regularly for prayer, Work said, voicing a certainty that the church will not
be the same after what has occurred.
Work hopes the revival’s long-term effects will include a greater sensitivity
to the Lord and a greater sensitivity to the sins that offend the Lord.
In addition, Candies Creek will “push all ministries off the table and put
prayer in the center. Then, we will rebuild our ministries around prayer,” Work
said.
The pastor also noted the church will seek to establish a method of biblical,
redemptive church discipline and to end superficiality not only with members
with each other but in their relationship with God.
“We need to take people deeper into their walk with the Lord in order to get
them into a deeper relationship with each other,” he said.
During his testimony before the Executive Committee, Work shared that “we are
still trying to figure out how we now function as a revived church” and asked
for prayer for the church and “for a Great Awakening to come to America
and our world.”
He also presented several books to EC members written by Greg Frizzell, a
prayer specialist with the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma,
as a gift from the church.
The resolution, titled “On Corporate Prayer and Repentance,” calls on SBC
churches, pastors and leaders to “seek the Lord in the manner of 2 Chronicles 7:14 and Joel
2: 12-17, and to repent corporately
in their various churches of all sins which God’s spirit reveals.”
It also calls on churches “to renew their first-love devotion to Jesus Christ
through full confession of and repentance from all revealed sin.”
The resolution also exhorts Southern Baptists to “pursue a life of genuine
repentance, Kingdom-focused prayer times for sweeping revival and spiritual
awakening and consistent prayer for specific lost people, missions and
ministry.”
The resolution concludes by urging churches to “embrace corporate prayer and
repentance for revival in the hope that God would be merciful to our churches,
the Southern Baptist Convention, the United
States of America and the peoples of the
world for the glory of His great Name.”
In a note to his congregation on June 14, Work said he was encouraged “that
beyond the presentation of this resolution, there are prayer and spiritual
awakening leaders across our nation who are ready to follow up on the subject
of the resolution with God-led attempts to put materials in the hands of
pastors that will enable them to lead their churches to re-prioritize prayer
and to lead their churches in corporate repentance and solemn assemblies.”
Work was excited that the resolution has been well received and was adopted
overwhelmingly by convention messengers.
“God is doing something bigger than just Candies Creek,” he told his members. “Keep
praying!”
(EDITOR’S NOTE — Wilkey is editor of the Baptist and Reflector, newsjournal of
the Tennessee Baptist Convention.)
The full text of the resolution ON CORPORATE PRAYER AND
REPENTANCE follows:
WHEREAS, Both the Old and New Testaments, as well as church history, attest to
the reality that God works powerfully and manifests His presence among His
people through authentic God-seeking prayer and repentance; and
WHEREAS, Jesus expressed deep grief and righteous anger when He came to the
temple and found it to be something other than a “house of prayer for all
nations” (Mark 11:17); and
WHEREAS, The book of Acts teaches through the birth of the church that what is
birthed in prayer is of necessity sustained by prayer (e.g., Acts 1:14; 2:1,
42; 4:31); and
WHEREAS, The common corporate sins of many churches include, but are not
limited to, prayerlessness, lukewarmness, neglect of biblical church
discipline, and shallow relationships with God and with one another; and
WHEREAS, In our preoccupation with Mammon, we have too often embraced
unbiblical priorities in our spending, our giving, our response to the poor,
and our allocation of resources, assuming by our actions, contrary to our Lord’s
explicit teaching, that our lives consist in the abundance of our possessions
(Luke 12:15); and
WHEREAS, For the past fifty years wickedness and family collapse have been
increasing rapidly, and at the same time we have seen that programs and
strategies alone cannot revive lagging baptism rates or anemic discipleship;
and
WHEREAS, The Southern Baptist Convention adopted the Great Commission
Resurgence Task Force report in 2010, a part of which called for pastors to
lead their churches in Solemn Assemblies “for the purpose of calling Christ’s
people to return to God, to repentance, and to humility in service to a renewed
commitment to Christ and the Great Commission”; and
WHEREAS, The Southern Baptist Convention adopted the addition to the Convention
Calendar of Activities a focused Day of Prayer for the SBC
in 2011 and for the years to follow; and
WHEREAS, God has already promised that He will not despise a “broken and
contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17); now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in
Phoenix, Arizona, June 14-15, 2011, do hereby beseech all pastors,
congregations, ministry leaders, and denominational workers to seek the Lord in
the manner of 2 Chronicles 7:14 and Joel
2:12-17, and to repent corporately in their various churches of all sins which
God’s Spirit reveals; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we call on all Southern Baptist churches to renew their
first-love devotion to Jesus Christ through full confession of and repentance
from all revealed sin, and that they humbly declare their utter dependence
upon, and glad surrender to, His grace; and be it further
RESOLVED, That we encourage all Southern Baptists to pursue a life of genuine
repentance, Kingdom-focused prayer times for sweeping revival and spiritual awakening,
and consistent prayer for specific lost people, missions, and ministry; and be
it finally
RESOLVED, That we urge Southern Baptist churches to embrace corporate prayer
and repentance for revival in the hope that God would be merciful to our churches,
the Southern Baptist Convention, the United States of America, and the peoples
of the world for the glory of His great Name.