CONFERENCE EVENTS

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PRAYER FOR YOUR CHURCH

Lord, I lift up the speakers and teachers in our church. May everyone who holds that position—pastors, Sunday school teachers, small group leaders, guest speakers—rightly divide Your word of truth. Let them admonish and teach with wisdom. Reveal the mysteries of Your word to them and encourage them to speak those mysteries courageously and fearlessly. Let them speak with a spirit of faith that springs from their relationship with You. (2 Tim. 2:15; Col. 1:28; Dan. 2:47; Phil. 1:14; 2 Cor. 4:13)
 
Home arrow November 2005 arrow Four Guidelines for Pastors
Four Guidelines for Pastors PDF Print E-mail
By Cheryl Sacks

Pastors who desire to establish praying churches can delegate many responsibilities to their associates and prayer leaders; however, scores of pastors across the nation confirm that some things just can’t be delegated.
After talking with pastors about their role in calling their church to prayer, the following guidelines emerged:
  1. Develop an authentic prayer life. Statistics indicate that many pastors pray about five minutes a day. As pastors, our efforts to establish a praying church will be in a strong position from the beginning if we have started the building process with our own lives. A personal belief in the power of prayer is fundamental.
  2. Take ownership for the prayer ministry. We are the primary initiators of the vision, and motivators of the people. Our efforts at becoming houses of prayer will be spurred by our own ability to have a clear vision, preach about it, promote it in the church, and celebrate it through prayer events and activities.
  3. Mentor and disciple the prayer leaders. When we become interested in their lives, they are strengthened and enabled to carry out our church’s vision for prayer. Mentor them in prayer, mentor them in the values of the church, and mentor them in leadership.
  4. Build and maintain rapport with the prayer leaders of your church. It’s not a task—it’s a relationship. The prayer ministry will grow out of these conditions. Try not to delegate the entire ministry to a prayer coordinator with the words, “Call me if you have any problems.” Your prayer leaders will be motivated and inspired to the extent that you take a real interest in them.

Leonard Griffin, pastor of Covenant of Grace, tells the story of how he learned this lesson. His prayer ministry was experiencing conflicts, power struggles and accusations.

“At first I just wanted to close down the prayer ministry. Then I realized this was happening because I had spent no time with the prayer leaders. I didn’t take time to get them on board with the church’s vision. It’s no wonder they had developed their own agenda.”

Leonard does things differently now. “Two years before I appointed my present prayer leader, I recognized that he was a potential prayer leader candidate. My wife and I began spending time with him and his wife. I took him through a discipleship program. More than the information that was being imparted, I realized that the greater value was the time we spent talking about the vision of the church and praying together.”

--Taken from The Prayer Saturated Church by Cheryl Sacks (NavPress 2004). Used by permission.
 
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