Ten Alabama Baptists are playing a key role overseas. And they need others to help.
That’s the word from Ed Cox, director of the international prayer strategy office for the International Mission Board (IMB). One of Cox’s responsibilities is to coordinate the work of stateside prayer advocates (SPA).
This group of prayer warriors, called SPAs, is trained by the IMB to provide prayer support for a selected international missions team, usually one working with a specific people group or segment of a people group. SPAs receive and distribute prayer requests from the field, enlist prayer partners, publicize the missions team’s work, mobilize prayer walks and act as “gatekeeper” for teams serving in sensitive areas.
There are 10 SPAs in Alabama and about 300 in the United States. But Cox said more are needed.
“We would like to have one for every team,” he said. “This program is not an add-on or an afterthought. It’s a very intentional, integral part of each team’s ministry. A team without a SPA is not complete.”
Cox envisions each team having 500 to 1,000 intercessors coordinated by one or more SPAs. In addition to the obvious impact prayer can have on the ministry, the ease of communication through one to three intermediaries “really frees the missionary on the field to have more witness-ministry time,” he said.
The IMB considers each SPA as a U.S.-based member of the missions team and encourages visits to his or her team’s area of service whenever possible to complete the stateside “virtual” missionary experience.
Anne Smith, a member of Meadowbrook Baptist Church, Oxford, in Calhoun Baptist Association, is a SPA for the Wales IMB team and has made seven trips there as a volunteer. Three of those have been since she became the SPA for the Cardiff-Bristol Beltway Team two years ago. Her involvement came through Tom and Ann Espy, members of her church who were part of the IMB team in Cardiff, Wales, until returning home earlier this year.
“I absolutely feel I am part of the Cardiff IMB team,” Smith said. “Once you go, you leave your heart there.”
Scott and Susan Long, members of First Baptist Church, Alabaster, in Shelby Baptist Association, fully expect to leave their hearts in West Africa when they visit this fall. Like Smith, the Longs became interested in SPA service through a member of their church, Laura Sharpe. Sharpe and her husband, Greg, are part of the IMB team ministering to West Africa’s Hausa people. In addition to publicizing the Hausa’s prayer requests, Susan Long has been active in speaking to groups around the state about the need for more prayer warriors for the team.
“Being connected to the work of missionaries in other parts of the world truly puts the big picture into focus on sharing Christ and being Acts 1:8-minded,” Scott Long said.
For more information about becoming a SPA, e-mail Cox at ECox@imb.org or call 1-800-999-3113.
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