Engage Week at Fortified Hills challenges members to pray, give, go By HENRY DURAND, The Christian Index Tuesday, November 3, 2026 DALLAS, Ga. — Engage Missions Week at Fortified Hills Baptist Church is designed to do more than tell church members what missionaries are doing around the world. Lead Pastor Josh Price described Engage Week as an opportunity for members to understand that they are participants in the mission of God through discipleship, prayer, giving, evangelism, and, for some, going to the nations. Zane Pratt, vice president for global training at the International Mission Board and associate professor of Christian missions at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, highlighted that theme during a message Sunday morning, Nov. 1. Pratt, who previously served with the IMB as an international church planter, preached from Luke 24:36-49, making the case that missions should not be treated as one ministry among many in the church. “Our tendency also is to see missions as just one more agenda,” Pratt said, describing it as something that can be viewed as a “special interest for a few” and safely ignored by everyone else. “But the reality is that Scripture is one story,” he said. “It’s got a beginning, it’s got a plot line, a direction, it’s going somewhere, it has an end. And missions is woven all the way through that story.” Pratt traced that story through the Old and New Testaments, pointing to God’s promise to Abraham that all the families of the earth would be blessed, the prophets’ vision of the nations worshiping God, and Jesus’ declaration that repentance and forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all nations. “The task of missions is written in the Old Testament,” Pratt said. “It’s a fulfillment of what God revealed from the start. It’s not just a minor sideshow in the New Testament. It literally is one of the great controlling themes of the entire Bible.” Engage Week began Sunday morning with an impact report highlighting ways members of Fortified Hills have been involved in missions locally and globally during the past year. The congregation also heard reports from mission partners serving overseas, while children heard from missionaries from Slovakia. Pratt preached during the morning worship service and returned Sunday evening for a workshop on “Missions and the Local Church,” addressing the role of the local church in global missions. The week continues Wednesday, when adults and students will hear from one of the church’s mission partners who is back in the United States from the Horn of Africa. Pratt told the congregation Sunday that the work of missions begins with Christians growing as disciples. “First of all,” he said, “you’ve got to be a disciple before you can make disciples.” Believers grow in their faith through studying Scripture, praying, and involving themselves in the local church, Pratt said, pointing out that discipleship happens in the context of the body of Christ. “Make yourself known and vulnerable to other believers,” he urged, “so that you can have the input of the body of Christ as you grow as a disciple.” Additionally, Pratt stressed the essential nature of prayer in missions work. Pratt recalled his own years serving overseas and the encouragement he received knowing that Southern Baptists were praying for him. “The story of missions is the story of answered prayer, often in miraculous ways,” he said. “So please don’t discount prayer. It is actually the most critical of all the tasks of missions.” Southern Baptists are able to send missionaries overseas through their giving to the Cooperative Program, a portion of which supports the International Mission Board. Pratt thanked the congregation for its faithful giving, explaining how the CP model allows those serving overseas to concentrate on sharing the gospel, discipling believers, planting churches, and training leaders rather than spending significant portions of their time raising financial support. But Pratt made clear that supporting missions cannot stop with praying and giving. “The bottom line here is the sending church, which means, for many of you, go,” he said. He challenged believers not to allow concerns about possible danger, age, or occupation to automatically disqualify them from considering missionary service. Pratt specifically appealed to men to consider serving, saying single women significantly outnumber single men on the mission field. He also encouraged retirees and people from a wide range of professions to consider how their skills could open doors for gospel work in places where traditional missionaries cannot easily go. “The bottom line,” Pratt said, “is that if you are a follower of Jesus, if you are a growing, maturing disciple, instead of saying, ‘Lord, why should I go?’ say, ‘Lord, I’ve seen what Your Word teaches. I see the condition of the world. And so given the fact that Jesus said repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, why not me?’” BLB.Tagger.Translation = 'CSB'; BLB.Tagger.HyperLinks = 'all'; // 'all', 'none', 'hover' BLB.Tagger.HideTranslationAbbrev = false; BLB.Tagger.TargetNewWindow = true; BLB.Tagger.DarkTheme = false; BLB.Tagger.Style = 'par'; // 'line' or 'par' BLB.Tagger.NoSearchTagNames = ''; // HTML element list BLB.Tagger.NoSearchClassNames = 'noTag doNotTag'; // CSS class list --- PHOTOS --- File: 20261103-115600-25f-Zane 5.jpg Caption: Zane Pratt, vice president for global training at the International Mission Board and associate professor of Christian missions at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, delivers a message during Engage week at Fortified Hills Baptist Church in Dallas, Ga., Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand) File: 20261103-115601-e95-Zane 8.jpg Caption: Zane Pratt, vice president for global training at the International Mission Board and associate professor of Christian missions at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, delivers a message during Engage week at Fortified Hills Baptist Church in Dallas, Ga., Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026. (Index/Henry Durand)