1 million praying for 1 million salvations by Pentecost Sunday

By Diana Chandler

ASHEBORO, N.C. (BP) – As Reagan P. Wilbanks and his grandfather Douglas Small help mobilize 1 million Christians praying for the salvation of a million souls by Pentecost Sunday, Wilbanks shares his earliest recollections of his grandfather’s prayers.

From the age of 5 or so, Wilbanks and his first cousins would hear their grandfather descending the stairs around 3 a.m. to his prayer room attached to the garage at his North Carolina home. Other times, Small would lead Wilbanks, born to the oldest of Small’s five children, and other descendants in popcorn prayers.

Reagan P. Wilbanks

“We’d all be in the room and we’d do what grandpa calls popcorn prayers, where somebody prays, and now another pops up and pops up and pops up, quick little prayers,” Wilbanks, now himself a husband and father of three, told Baptist Press. “And that was a kind of a hallmark, you might say, of the family gatherings.”

Those family prayer gatherings encourage Wilbanks as he joins his grandfather in the Prayer at the Heart (PATH) multidenominational evangelistic outreach launched a month ago and continuing through May 24th. From there, PATH would mobilize 5 million in prayer, 10 million and more as the movement sets new goals.

Former Southern Baptist Convention President Ronnie Floyd, who was also SBC Executive Committee president and CEO from 2019-2021, is endorsing the outreach alongside Samaritan’s Purse President and CEO Franklin Graham.

“I think one of the greatest things we can do is to share the burden of reaching 1 million people for Jesus, and then call the churches of America to focus on reaching people for Jesus Christ in their own towns and cities,” Floyd told Baptist Press. “Only the Spirit of God can mobilize the churches of America towards advancing the Gospel to every person, every town, every city and every state.”

Event organizers would like 20,000 from each state to participate, which would satisfy the 1 million goal. To date, 3,380 were officially registered, event promoters said, although more might be engaged in the outreach through church membership.

“I want to call us all to pray, pray and pray more, pleading with God to do something miraculous, something God-sized,” Floyd said. “Imagine this: During the Prayer Revival in America in 1957-58, 1 million people came to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Back then, America had only 30 million residents. Today, we have over 348 million people living in our nation. This initiative reminds me of that era because of its emphasis on prayer, and it ultimately led to a massive movement of people following Jesus. So let’s pray fervently and share Jesus passionately,” he urged, repeating his oft-said phrase, “People need Jesus, and people need Jesus now.”

Wilbanks and Small are both active members of a Church of God (Cleveland, Tenn.) congregation in Asheboro, but PATH has support from several denominations, organizers said. Small is PATH’s president and executive director, while Wilbanks is executive administrator on an eight-member core leadership team.

Douglas Small

“Twenty thousand in every state by Pentecost Sunday will get us to our million goal,” Small said. “But what we really want to do is see this happening at the grassroots area, so we’re looking for small groups of people meeting. Here’s what we’re saying to churches.”

Small encourages churches to open their doors for impromptu prayers Wednesday through Sunday of the week of Pentecost Sunday.

“Open your church door and let people come and pray. Don’t do a prayer service. Don’t feel like you have to,” Small said. “Just put a sign out, ‘Church open for prayer morning, noon and night.’ Let people come and pray. Put names up on the screen of people that you want to stay safe. Lay names on the altar and weep over the lost people that you care about, that you love. And that Sunday, make that a Come Back Home Sunday. So we’re saying all across the nation, come home.”

Wilbanks encourages his fellow Gen Z Americans to participate.

“Gen Z is often called the anxious generation. You often see this searching for hope and searching for stability, searching for some kind of normalcy. and that’s only going to be found in Christ,” Wilbanks said. “So if I had to say something to Gen Z, I’d say come back, come home.

“And this is a generation that, as one PATH board member pointed out, is not a generation that’s left the church, but more a generation that hasn’t been in the church. It was their parents who left the church. They’ve grown up without any experience. So they’re almost a completely unreached people group, you might say.”

Churches may register here to participate in the prayer outreach, with individual registrations available here.