Heritage Baptist Church

Elder Prayer Update

As we continue to lift up the needs of our church community, we want to take a moment to focus our prayers on our elders. These faithful leaders carry the weight of shepherding, teaching, and caring for the spiritual well-being of others, often while navigating personal challenges of their own. Praying for our elders is vital—not only for their strength, wisdom, and protection, but also to encourage and support them as they lead with humility and faith. Let’s come together to intercede on their behalf, trusting God to refresh and sustain them in every season.

Learn more about our Elders and their positions here.

Nathan Smith | Senior Pastor

Often the pastor’s home devotions run parallel to what the pastor brings to the congregation on Sunday mornings in the preaching. This allows me to personalize it in my own heart, but also to disciple my family in truths that we are also wrestling with as a church. As we go into John 14-16 in the Fall as a church, we are also as a family considering how we love God in keeping His commandments, and meditate on the great truth of a God who wants to make His home with His people, and stroll alongside them even as He did in the garden with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. Please pray for our family that we would walk with Jesus together, and learn to love God more in thought and action, especially as I have three teenagers learning to own their faith as their own. John 14:23 “Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

As a church, please pray that we would have a deeper understanding of who Christ is and what He has done for us, and that this rich knowledge of union with Christ and salvation would deepen our communion with God and empower our witness in the power of the Spirit. I am praying for our church that the truth will transform our understanding and multiply our love, joy, and peace in the affections of Christ. John 15:8-11, “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Kevin Haglund | Pastor of Worship Ministries

Please pray Galatians 6:6-10 over Suzanne and I and our family.

Pray for the Worship Ministry as we take the deep community that has been established and begin to leverage it to expand God’s Kingdom locally.

Dave Ashburn | Pastor of Community Life

Exodus 15:11 – Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonder?

Please pray that my family and I would regularly be captivated by the greatness and goodness of God and that we would be fueled by that in how we interact with each other and those around us.

Please pray that the members of Heritage would be quick to share how God is working in them, so that the whole body benefits and the community within the body deepens.

Nathan Fox | Pastor of Student Ministries

Meditating today on Psalm 150, to boast in the Lord in praise and adoration at all times and in all places. Prayers would be that in this season of much for our family (trips, camps, counseling) we would make it a regular rhythm of our time as a family to pause, reflect on the Lord’s goodness, and declare with thanksgiving His work in our lives. And that such thanksgiving would fuel further delight and obedience!

We are on the cusp of three mission weeks, as well as a week of Summer Camp. Prayers for transformation for our teens and leaders, as they understand further and further what Gospel living looks like in this context and beyond, and what the Lord has for them in the work of making His name known!

Joshua Hankins | Pastor of Kids Ministry

1 Peter 5:6–7, please pray that we would rely on the mighty hand of God as we work and parent our two little ones.

Please pray that our children would know the breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Jesus through the community they build at Heritage.

Pastor Rob | Pastor of Global Ministries

“And His mercy is for those who fear Him from generation to generation.” Luke 1:50

As I read this amazing refrain, I cannot help but ask the Body at Heritage to pray we would never cease to grow in awe of His mercy shown to us. May we not lose wonder that we might be recipients of His kindness and love. Will you pray we might join Mary in song, magnifying our great Savior.

Please pray that all members of Heritage understand their equal value in seeing the Good News of Jesus proclaimed in Lynchburg, our nation, and to the nations!

Jeff Scott | Pastor of Biblical Mentoring

I have been meditating much over Colossians 3:1-17. Pray that we would be reminded of our standing in Christ’…raised with Him … (v. 1-4), our responsibility to ‘seek, set our minds, put off the old self and put on the new self’, to learn to embrace the resource of ‘dewlling richly’ in the Word of Christ in our time with Jesus and by means of others ‘teaching, admonishing, and singing’ God’s Word to us.

We are entering a new normal for eldership. Pray that God would open hearts to see their place in the Great Commission, whether they are Goers or Stayers and that God would lead us well in developing a ‘Pathway’ for ‘Stayers’ that creates a desire to step into roles that accomplish the mission ‘to live out the Gospel Life.’

Allen Waldrep | Pastor of Connections

Mike Crump | Pastor of Engagement

Romans 15: 4 “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.” Pray for me and my family to endure well in the midst of difficulty. Though the seasons of struggle may not last long, we desire to abide well in the truth of our glorious Savior, Jesus.

I ask for prayer for the body of Christ at Heritage that we may truly be united in our pursuit of Jesus and that we would seek to celebrate the work of God in our lives, homes, and church.

Keith Metzler | Lay Elder

Colossians 4:2 “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.“

Please pray that Susan and I would maintain an awareness of our complete dependence on the Lord and abide with Him through our days in steadfast, vigilant prayer.

Consider the spotlight in which our global workers exist. Pray for a secure identity in Christ that precludes the temptation to comparison.

Matthew Hankins | Lay Elder

Ben Forrest | Lay Elder

I have been reading in Luke and praying before I read that I would see and enjoy Jesus. To this, John 12:21 comes to mind, “Sir… we would like to see Jesus.” I would be greatly encouraged if this were to be prayed for me in this season as I enter into eldership. I would welcome prayers for my eyes, my heart, my affections, and my family–that we would all see and savor Jesus.