thought he grew up in a family without any spiritual ties. After he
came to Christ, he was kicked out of the house. What Tippit didn’t
know was that his father had run away from biblical instruction
taught to him by his parents.
The evangelist says he doesn’t remember
his father ever talking about his grandparents. In searching out his
roots, “I discovered a rich heritage that I [didn’t know about].
And when I discovered it, one of the moving things I found was that
my grandmother—whom I had never met because she died before I was
born—was a godly, praying woman.”
The only thing written about her was
her prayer life. Tippit says she prayed that her lost son would come
to Christ. “God answered her prayers through a grandson [me]
whom she never met and whom she never got to know, to bring her son
back to the Lord.”
Tippit’s father was saved on his
deathbed. He says that led him to write the book, Praying For Your
Family: An Eternal Legacy.
“The very first part of the book
is: What do you do when you pray? I mean, a lot of people don’t know
what to do. And then, how do you pray for your family? What are the
obstacles? What keeps you from doing that? I believe it will help our
listeners and see God do a work in our families.”
“If God were to touch their
families and people were to come to Christ inside our families, there
would be an evangelism explosion,” Tippit says. “We could turn
this country around if we would just reach our own families.”
While the book started off as an effort
to help the North American church, it has now grown. “I started
having [Christians from other countries] say, ‘Can we have it over
here? Can we have it in our country? We need this so desperately.’ I
found that there is a crisis that is happening around the world in
families and homes. So, the book has now been translated into
numerous languages,” Tippit explains.
In July Tippit will be heading to
Brazil not only to lead evangelistic meetings, but also to lead a
conference on Praying For Your Family.
While the prayers of Tippit’s
grandmother were answered, God has done exceedingly and abundantly
above what she could ask or think because her grandson is being used
to share Christ in the Middle East, Asia, South America, Africa and
Europe. Countless thousands are people are reaping the benefit of
faithful prayers of a little old woman in the woods of North America.
