"Broken Before The Throne" Prayer Conference

This November 2nd and 3rd the West Virginia Convention of Southern Baptists will hold its annual meeting at Westview Baptist Church in Martinsburg, WV. It has been my privilege to serve as President of the WVCSB for the past two years and I have enjoyed working closer with wonderful Baptist people from all around the Mountain State. My term of office will end at this year's meeting. State office officials, the program committee, and the host church are all working to make this convention meeting a great one. We look forward to being in Martinsburg along with other messengers from all over the state, and we certainly appreciate Pastor Johnny Kelly and the folks at Westview for hosting us. There will be good fellowship, excellent music, anointed preaching, reports from various agencies, and the usual business sessions. However, the most important thing happening at Westview in early November will not be the State Convention meeting. I believe the most powerful thing that will happen there will begin the evening the convention closes. That's when the nine day, "Broken Before The Throne" Prayer Conference will begin at the same church.

I had first heard about this prayer conference last August at our state's "Shepherding the Shepherd" conference in Canaan Valley. God had put the vision for this conference in the heart of one of our West Virginia pastors, Dan Biser. Dan serves two churches in our state; Zoar Baptist in Augusta and Fox's Hollow Baptist Church in Romney. Dan is one of the most powerful prayer warriors I have ever known and he has impressed and challenged me to be more deeply immersed in my own prayer life. The concept for the conference came to Dan in 2005 when he was blessed to have T.W. Hunt lead a prayer conference in his two congregations. The seed was planted, and Dan began to pray and work toward putting together a larger prayer conference that would include other churches. He enlisted some of the most powerful speakers and prayer advocates in the world, and God put it all together.

When you look at the line up of speakers that have been assembled, one can only surmise that it is a "God thing". Conference leaders for the various sessions include:

• Henry and Richard Blackaby (of Blackaby Ministries)
• T.W. Hunt (Ministry in Prayer)
• Al Whittinghill (Ambassadors for Christ International)
• Francois Carr (Revival for South Africa)
• Sammy Tippit (Sammy Tippit Ministries)
• Frank Page (President of the Southern Baptist Convention)
• Greg Frizzell (Prayer and Spiritual Awakening Specialist, Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma)

There will also be an added two day Women's Conference with special speakers Tex Tippit, Bobbye Rankin, and Elaine Helms.

Dan Biser came to our State Convention Office to share the burden with our entire state. Our Executive Committe voted to embrace the idea and the State Convention was on board. The word began to spread to neighboring states and eventually around the country. I last saw Dan at the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting in San Antonio, and he was telling everyone who would listen about the upcoming prayer conference in West Virginia's eastern panhandle. Baptist Press ran a story on August 2nd. SBC President Frank Page (pastor of FBC Taylors, South Carolina) told Baptist Press, "This prayer conference may well be one of the most important events of the year. Many people from across the nation are gathering to learn more about prayer as well as to spend serious time in prayer." Momentum is building and anticipation is growing. I believe that week in Martinsburg has the potential to be the beginning of another Great Awakening in our nation.

I invite you to visit the website http://prayerconference2007.com and consider joining me for all or part of the "Broken Before The Throne" prayer conference November 3-11 at Westview Baptist Church in Martinsburg, WV.