This year marks the 100th anniversary of the famous Route 66 — and Missouri Baptists are among those hoping to see an eternal impact amid the celebration.
See related story — First person: Reflecting on our ‘great out west adventure’ and life lessons
The Route 66 Prayer Tour, hosted by the Missouri Baptist Convention’s Prayer and Evangelism Group, will be a four-night series of gatherings for the specific purpose of praying for a spiritual awakening. Each gathering will feature a mix of worship and prayer. Missouri remains home to 317 miles of what came to be known as “The Mother Road.”
The Route 66 Prayer Tour will be held Aug. 30th through Sept. 2 at four Missouri locations along Route 66. Those four locations are First Baptist Church Crestwood in St. Louis, First Baptist Church St. James, First Baptist Church Marshfield, and Forest Park Baptist Church Joplin. Prayer gatherings will begin each evening at 6:30 p.m.
“We will pray for our host church and their immediate area, for revival in our own hearts and spiritual awakening in our state,” noted Bob Caldwell, who has been instrumental in putting the tour together.
Ride along
In addition to gathering each evening for worship and prayer, Missouri Baptists’ Prayer and Evangelism Team Leader Rob Pochek is inviting Baptists in the state to join him on the route. He will be riding his Harley Davidson motorcycle to each stop along the prayer tour, and he invites others to ride (or drive) along with him.
“Route 66 has long been a favorite for motorcyclists and car enthusiasts, and I know we have a good number of each in the MBC,” Pochek noted.
Pochek’s planned daily route, along with details for the prayer gathering at each location, can be found on the Prayer and Evangelism page of the MBC website.
“Riding Route 66 will be fun, but my priority is the prayer gatherings,” he noted. “It is believers crying out for revival and spiritual awakening that will move the heart of our Heavenly Father,” noted Pochek. He encourages Baptists to make plans now to attend the prayer tour gathering nearest you.
Route 66 history
On Nov. 11, 1926, with signage erected the following year, Route 66 became one of the original highways in the United States Numbered Highway System. The highway ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona before ending in Santa Monica, California. The route covers 2,448 miles.
“Travelers with a car could go where they wanted and stay as long as they wanted. And that brought new people to small towns across the Midwest and West,” reported Mary Muncy on The World and Everything in It podcast.
The National Park Service and the Federal Highway Administration officially created Route 66, Muncy noted, “as part of a larger project to systemize American roadways and connect major trade hubs.”
But it didn’t stop there, Muncy reported: “An Oklahoma road commissioner named Cyrus Avery is known as the ‘father’ of the route. Avery argued that the Midwest needed to be connected to the West. So he pushed for a diagonal road that stitched together existing roads to create a 2,500-mile highway with consistent signage and markings—a rarity at the time. After much discussion, officials named the new highway Route 66.”
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written and originally published by the Pathway. This story was contributed to by The Baptist Paper.
