October 22, 2024
LITHIA SPRINGS, GEORGIA – It has been said that the church is not a place. It is a body, a family with blood ties through Jesus Christ. Jason Loudermilk, the mission strategist for the West Metro Baptist Association, understands the absolute necessity and power of prayer and has developed a meaningful blueprint for getting the family of God to praying for the pastors and churches of his association.
Each week Loudermilk selects one of the churches in his association, produces a well-designed video on that pastor and church and sends the video to everyone on his email data base urging the recipients of the video to pray for that featured ministry of the week. This approach to enhancing the prayer life of the association has been well received and greatly appreciated.
Loudermilk is an ardent believer in the power of prayer. He explained, “I have found in my own life that prayer is one of the things that God uses to change me. I find that when I pray for others, God grows my compassion and love for them. My hope is that by encouraging church members to pray for other churches, we are helping strengthen the prayer life of believers and encouraging a Kingdom mindset among our churches.
“Too many times in the church world we focus on the wrong things and set churches up to almost be in competition with each other,” Loudermilk stated.
“We celebrate attendance numbers and other statistics, but forget that if attendance is down, it can be discouraging to hear how others are doing. This prayer emphasis focuses not on numbers, but on seeking what God is doing in each church, celebrating that, and then joining our hearts to pray for our churches with a special focus on ‘the church of the week’.”
The results of this prayer emphasis have been most encouraging. Loudermilk reported, “I watch the number of views; and it has been exciting to see how many people view the videos each week, and that is not counting the number of churches that are showing the videos during their prayer meetings.
“People are calling the association office to express their gratitude for this prayer emphasis. It is also a blessing to get to hear from the various pastors in the association as they share their requests and concerns to those who are committed to intercede on their behalf.
One might ask, “How did this ministry originate?”
About a year after Loudermilk started as the association’s mission strategist, a lady came up to him after he had preached a sermon in one of the West Metro churches and asked him if the association had a specific prayer ministry.
He recalled, “It was disappointing to me to have to answer her that we did not at the time have such a ministry. We encouraged people to pray about certain ministries and events, but there was no on-going prayer ministry. That lady’s inquiry resonated with me for several weeks; and I resolved that one of the best ways for our churches to partner together was to pray together.
“God showed me that churches were not engaged in praying for each other in a systematic, consistent way. I began to encourage that in emails, but last year I began interviewing pastors and creating videos. This has resulted in our association getting to know pastors better and discovering how we can best pray for our churches, pastors and their families.”
One of the churches highlighted in this prayer ministry is Mount Harmony Baptist Church in Mableton. Randal Whitten, the pastor of the church, was interviewed in a brief cinematic clip and requested that he would like for West Metro Baptists to pray that he and his wife Cathy might be able to see the families of their grown sons more often.
Geoffrey, his wife and two children live in the Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX, area and Ryan and his wife, who is expecting their first child, live in West Palm Beach, FL. All parents and grandparents can empathize with the Whittens and join in prayer that they might have more opportunities to visit with their family
Whitten, who has been Mount Harmony’s pastor for 14 years, also requested that prayer be offered to bless and empower the church as they try to get their arms around the new strategy to emphasize the five purposes of the church: evangelism, ministry, discipleship, worship, and fellowship. He stated that the Church has a wonderful 150-year heritage, but desires that the future might even be brighter than the past.
Videos of the churches in the West Metro Baptist Association that have been featured thus far may be found at this website link: https://www.westmetrobaptist.com/church-of-the-week
