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Biweekly prayer calls bolster ‘Who’s Your One?’


NASHVILLE (BP) — Every other Tuesday afternoon for 15 minutes, leaders across the Southern Baptist Convention pause for a conference call to pray for their “one” — the person they’re seeking to share the Gospel with as part of the “Who’s Your One?” evangelistic initiative. The initiative is a joint effort between SBC President J.D. Greear and the North American Mission Board.

The calls, each led by a different Southern Baptist leader, began Feb. 5 and have grown largely by word-of-mouth and social media promotion. Everyone is invited to join the calls, including the next one April 30, which will be led by NAMB’s Johnny Hunt. NAMB President Kevin Ezell will lead the May 14 call.

“Fervent prayer is the foundation of ‘Who’s Your One?’ because salvation belongs to God — not to us,” said Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in the Raleigh-Durham, N.C., area. “We’re asking that God would make us sensitive to the Spirit’s leading so He can use us as His instruments. The call is an opportunity for us as leaders to model the prayer that continues in homes and churches throughout the week.”

Hunt noted, “We absolutely must not underestimate the power and importance of prayer in this.”

“It has to be the foundation we build all of our efforts on when we share the Gospel,” he said. “I have been so encouraged to know that people are praying for this effort around the world. It reminds me that the outcomes are not dependent on me or any human effort. The results and all of the credit are God’s alone.”

The concept of biweekly conference calls developed as Greear’s staff at The Summit planned “Who’s Your One?” with NAMB’s evangelism staff, said Matt Miglarese, a Summit pastor who helps coordinate the evangelistic initiative. Call leaders have included Greear, California pastor A.B. Vines and Donna Gaines, wife of immediate past SBC president Steve Gaines.

On the April 16 call, Donna Gaines told about personal witnessing efforts of people at her husband’s pastorate, Memphis-area Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn. Among them, a 90-year-old woman led 15 people to faith in Christ during a recent hospitalization, and a visitation team’s witness last August bore fruit this month when a woman they visited decided to attend church amid a personal crisis and was saved.

“You never know how God’s going to use you going by and sharing the Gospel and inviting someone to church,” Gaines said, “or just asking them how you might pray for them.”

Miglarese was listening to the call with a fellow Summit pastor, and both of them recently “had tried to initiate spiritual conversations that got shot down,” he said. The other pastor commented that “it was great to pray, and it was encouraging to hear where God is moving when I don’t see it immediately in front of me.”

As Gaines prayed, she asked fellow call participants to “lift the name or names of the people you’re praying for to the Lord right now.”

The calls all begin at 2 p.m. Eastern time and can be joined by dialing 515-604-3112. All participants other than the presenter are muted automatically.

A schedule of upcoming prayer calls is available at WhosYourOne.com, with calls scheduled through May 28. Also available at WhosYourOne.com is a 30-day prayer guide for individuals or groups.

“I’d invite every leader to put this prayer call on their calendar and join us for the next call April 30th,” Greear said.