Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”
John Copeland hopes this question — found in Psalm 85:6 — will be the cry of pastors’ hearts at this year’s Alabama Baptist Pastors Conference.
“From the condition of our country and even of our churches, we’re in need of a real move of God in the hearts of our people,” said Copeland, pastor of First Baptist Church, Fulton, and president of the pastors conference. “We want revival. The preaching at the conference will take us in that direction — to see the pastors revived and recommitted to God and to take that back to their churches.”
The pastors conference, held in conjunction with the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting, is set for Nov. 14 at Dauphin Way Baptist Church, Mobile. The daytime session starts at 9 a.m. (continental breakfast at 8:30), while the evening session kicks off at 7 p.m.
“The evening session will give rise to the hope nestled in all of our hearts as pastors and Christian leaders. Hope from the Scriptures. Hope from history,” said Byron Paulus of Life Action Ministries in Buchanan, Mich., who will be leading that session. “Our country is in a state of national spiritual emergency. And the responsibility does not lie with those outside the Church but rather within the Church.”
The great hope, Paulus said, is that true change — “the kind of change that captures the soul of an entire nation, transforming it from the core”— will start with authentic Christianity in the Church.
“There is no hope apart from revival. But there is also no hope like revival,” he said.
Those present for the evening session also will hear firsthand reports of God’s work at Candies Creek Baptist Church, Charleston, Tenn., the movement that fueled the Resolution on Corporate Prayer and Repentance adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention at its meeting in June.
They will hear a report of “what God did in a six-week protracted time of divine visitation in revival at The Summit Church in (North) Little Rock, (Ark.),” Paulus said, as well as hearing about OneCry, an initiative launching in February 2012 calling for intercessors to stand in the gap for America.
Josh Davis of Proskuneo Ministries in Grayson, Ga., will lead music during the session.
Leading up to the evening session,
• Herb Reavis Jr., senior pastor of North Jacksonville Baptist Church in Florida, will open the morning session.
• Gregory Frizzell, the prayer and spiritual awakening specialist with the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, will follow Reavis and give a call for repentance and revival.
• Michael Catt, senior pastor of Sherwood Baptist Church, Albany, Ga., will speak during the afternoon session. Catt’s church is home to Sherwood Pictures, which has created “Courageous,” “Fireproof,” “Facing the Giants” and “Flywheel.”
• Kyle Martin of the Texas-based radio show “Time to Revive” also will bring a message during the afternoon session. According to his ministry website, timetorevive.com, Martin “has a passion for reviving the sleepy, complacent and broken church in America.”
• Revivalist and evangelist Don Graham, of Clanton, will close the afternoon session.
“We are praying for it to be a great day of spiritual awakening,” Copeland said.
For more information, call Copeland at 334-830-9600 or email him at drjccopeland@bellsouth.net. (TAB)
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