June 16, 2025
WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — “Now is the time,” when it comes to sharing the gospel of Christ, Shane Pruitt told Georgia Baptists Monday, Feb. 24, on the second day of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s Evangelism Conference. Pruitt, national Next Gen director for the North American Mission Board, stressed that believers should have a sense of urgency to tell the lost about Jesus.
Pruit was speaking to a full house of pastors, ministry leaders, and church members from across the state gathered at Central Baptist Church in Warner Robins. “We need revival,” Pruitt declared, “but our nation will not experience revival until the churches in our nation experience revival, and our churches won’t experience revival until the individuals that make up the church experience revival.” God is the source of revival, but “it comes through His people.”
Teaching from the first book of Acts, Pruitt said, “Now is the time for the gospel, because outside this campus is a hopeless world.” The world needs hope, joy, life, and peace, Pruitt asserted, “and this is what we believe. Hope has a name. .Joy has a name. Life has a name. Peace has a name… It’s the name Jesus Christ.”
Secondly, Pruitt said, “Now is the time to be the church, because God’s plan A of getting the gospel to the world is the church, and there’s no backup plan.” The church, he continued, is not a building, rather it is “people empowered by the Holy Spirit of God.” We who have the Spirit are called to be witnesses, as stated in Acts 1:8.
Finally, Pruitt concluded, “Now is the time to go.” Pruitt said the certainty of the second coming of Jesus should prompt believers to share the gospel. “Get to work, because just like Jesus came the first time, He’s coming again!”
As long as Jesus tarries his coming you have an opportunity to be a church that shares the gospel, but the moment the trumpet blasts and Jesus comes back, it’s too late.”
Pruitt asked his listeners to come forward and pray. "Every great evangelism movement starts with a prayer movement. Every great revival and spiritual awakening starts with a prayer movement."
Earlier, attendees also heard from Kie Bowman, senior pastor emeritus at Hyde Park Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, about the necessity of praying for the lost. Using the Apostle Pauls’ prayer for the lost recounted in Romans 10:1 as a model, Bowman said believers should pray with a “burning passion.”
“Paul is saying I care about these people, I care that they come to Christ… If you care,” Bowman said, “it will lead to prayer.”
Bowman’s second point is that believers should pray for the lost with “a bold intercession.” He told his listeners, “You’re never more like Jesus than when you’re praying for other people.” The Bible says Jesus ever lives to make intercession for us. “That’s His full-time job,” Bowman said. “Prayer moves the hand that moves the world, and there is a power in prayer that most of us in this room have never tapped into."
Bowman ended by praying over and for those gathered, asking, “Let Georgia be the epicenter of the next great spiritual awakening.”
Attendees also had another opportunity earlier in the morning to attend one of ten breakouts focused on specific challenges around evangelism.
The GBMB will hold another Evangelism Conference on Monday, Nov. 10, prior to the 2025 annual meeting of the Georgia Baptist Convention to be held at First Baptist Church Atlanta.
