Pastors and Prayer

Dear Pastors

Pastors and Prayer

Over the years I have bumped into quite a few survey’s that tell me that generally speaking pastors are not satisfied with their personal prayer lives. I am one of those pastors. I struggled to give sufficient time to prayer throughout my pastoral leadership life. In truth I still do to this present day.

Like you I have read the classic books on this subject and been incredibly motivated to change my routines (and often I was successful……….for a few weeks maybe a few months), I have noted carefully the references to the prayer life of Jesus and I have preached a fair few sermons on the topic. The most challenging text I have thought long and hard about is Acts 6:2-4.

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was an answer to prayer. The earliest Christian leaders, along with just over a 100 followers of Christ, were praying and waiting when God suddenly moved in power (Acts 1–2). The earliest Christians devoted themselves to “the prayers” (Acts 2:42), and as the church grew and the demands of leadership increased, church leaders realized they needed to reset their priorities (Acts 6). The neglect of some of the widows in the church had helped them realize they couldn’t do everything.

But what should be their focus? Should they focus on benevolence or administration? These were good and spiritual options (Rom. 12:6–8), but the leaders of the early church knew something was better. Under the leadership of the Holy Spirit they proclaimed, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word”.

Did you notice what made the apostles’ list of what to they had to do? The study and teaching of the Word and prayer. Looking after people’s practical needs was incredibly important including acting as mediators and peacemakers when conflicts arose but the leaders realized they would lose everything if they gave up on prayer. All the generosity required to care for the widows would have dried up if the leaders hadn’t continued to dip their buckets into the well of God’s mercy by praying for God’s people.

Here are a few things I’ve learnt:-

1. Prayer keeps my relationship with God ‘warm’. As much as anything I view prayer as a conversation with my heavenly father. It’s all about growing the most important relationship I possess.
2. Prayer really does unlock spiritual power. Whether we are a charismatic believer or not it would be hard to deny the reality that prayer as taught and exemplified in the scriptures most always resulted in a greater measure of God’s power being released or unlocked amongst His people. We need His power in our gatherings, we need His power in our families and we need His power individually as we seek to live as fully devoted followers of Christ in the midst of a very sceptical, disbelieving, volatile and sexualised age.
3. Prayer (together with bible reading) gives us wisdom better than our own. Life is complex. People’s lives are complex. Many people have problems and face issues that are stubborn and seemingly intractable. I have noticed that many people are looking for a ‘word of wisdom’ these days. I believe that this is one of most important ministries we as pastors have……..words of wisdom. I think of wisdom as ‘the application of (biblical) knowledge and truth into real life situations’.
4. Praying for our congregation gives you as pastor insight. God knows best, right? God knows what is needful for the hour in which we live. Every congregation has unique needs. Some of those needs are as a result of the world we live in and are generally quite easy to figure out. The needs that are much harder to discern are those that are private and deeply personal. In-sight is seeing ‘inside’. It is seeing (sight) what is not obvious or easily discernible. Is this not such an important aspect of pastoral leadership these days? Once we get insight we can shape our ministries accordingly.

Finally. In the world of business it is almost a universal maxim that what separates a high performer to a mediocre performer is often determined by what he/she does before breakfast. I know that this is not good news to so called owls amongst us but I wish to submit that the early morning 2-3 hours are the most important hours of the day. That’s what I reckon. What do you say?

Blessings
Alan