WASHINGTON — Worship materials for Baptist World Alliance (BWA) Day are now available for download on the BWA website, www.bwanet.org, to help churches unite in celebrating the worldwide Baptist family April 30 or May 1.
BWA Day was originally called Baptist World Alliance Sunday. It was begun in the mid-1920s and was to be a day of “worldwide fellowship in praise and prayer.”
The Baptist Times first reported on the event in England on Feb. 7, 1926.
Quickly becoming an important tradition, BWA Day is now observed on either Saturday or Sunday worship days and provides an opportunity for people around the world to join in prayer for the wider Baptist family and especially to remember those Baptists who are suffering persecution and deprivation.
This is also the one day each year when churches are encouraged to collect an offering for the global work of the BWA.
In 2007, BWA Day moved from the first Sunday in February to the first worship day in May to provide a midyear emphasis for the Baptist world family among the churches.
The celebration now includes the Saturday prior to the first Sunday, for the Seventh Day Baptists.
2011 BWA Day worship materials have been composed by Myra Blyth, tutorial fellow in worship and pastoral studies at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, England, contemplating the quinquennial emphasis, “In Step with the Spirit.”
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