Day 14: Praying For Your Pastor Again

It has been ten days since you first prayed for your pastor. Pastors need prayer consistently. Let’s look at some more reasons why prayer is so important.

James is a pastor in Tennessee. He has served his church for nine years. Like any church, his congregation is a mixed bag of blessings and challenges. He deeply loves the members. He expresses and demonstrates that love often.

The day I spoke with James was one of those challenging days for him. He told me the story of Rick and how he had come to the church five years ago.

“Rick and his wife were close to divorce,” Pastor James told me. “I spent hours counseling both of them. I referred them to a marriage counselor as well. It was a time-consuming endeavor, but it was worth the effort. The marriage made it. I was incredibly grateful for a number of reasons, but particularly because they had three children under eight years old.”

James mentioned how he had invested countless hours mentoring Rick over the next few years.

“I spent more time with Rick than any other church member. Again, I counted my time with him as a great investment, a blessing worthy of the effort.”

Then James began to speak slowly.

“Rick started attending church less frequently about a year ago. I would text or call him fairly regularly, but he became less responsive. Then, about two weeks ago, he emailed me to tell me that he and his family were moving to another church because they weren’t getting fed at our church.”

The pastor was crushed. Rick had never given any indication that he was unhappy at the church. He even called James his best friend. And now he was gone. The one person the pastor had given the most time to was gone. In ministry, that’s sometimes how things go.

THE PASTOR’S ROLLER COASTER

In the course of a week, a pastor might celebrate a person becoming a follower of Christ, deal with a tragic suicide, receive an encouraging note, lead a contentious business meeting, rejoice at the birth of a child, and receive a hateful and anonymous letter of criticism. It’s an emotional roller coaster.

When someone asks me if they should become a pastor, I respond, “Only if you absolutely know you have been called by God. You should not even think of doing it in your own power.”

THE 24/7 JOB

Pastors hear regularly, “I would love your job. You only work one hour a week.” Though the oft-repeated lines are meant to be funny, most pastors find little humor in them. They know that many people see their work as light and undemanding. To the contrary, most pastors work long and often weary hours. They take little time off.

In a Church Answers survey of pastors, many said they had interrupted a family vacation to return home to lead a funeral. Some pastors expressed deep regret for this because their wife and children were deeply hurt. Many pastors are torn between caring for their church members and taking time off with their families.

Some church members want pastors to spend more time doing counseling. Others want them visiting nursing homes, shut-in members, and hospitals. Some members expect pastors to connect with unchurched people several hours every week. Still other members demand their pastor keep forty hours per week of office hours, pushing visitation and other responsibilities to “after hours.” Earlier I mentioned a pastor who told me that he had spoken with a pastoral search committee member who told him to anticipate working 120 hours a week.

Not surprisingly, he didn’t take the job.

In most cases, the work expectations of pastors are high. If a church has two hundred members, the pastor has two hundred people who think he works for them. And that doesn’t include the expectations of people outside the church.

THE SERMON AND PASTORS

In a study we conducted several years ago, our research team found that pastors of mostly healthy churches spent about twenty hours per week in sermon preparation (see my book Surprising Insights from the Unchurched). Keep in mind, those hours are above and beyond all the expectations noted thus far.

For sure, pastors need blocks of uninterrupted time to prepare sermons, but it doesn’t always work that way. In fact, it rarely works that way. Some major interruption will take place. It may be as insignificant as someone dropping by to chat, or it may be the unexpected death of a faithful member of the church. Still, the pastor must get the sermon prepared.

Think about it. Pastors not only have to prepare a sermon every week, but most pastors also have to prepare around fifty sermons a year. The ministry is never-ending. The challenges are always there.

FOR YOU TO KNOW

So why have I given you this brief overview of the challenges of being a pastor? Simply stated, I want you to know how to pray for your pastor. If you and your church are to become vehicles of Great Commission obedience, your pastor needs to lead the way. And your pastor needs strength, wisdom, and God’s protection. You need to pray for all of these and more for your pastor.

A Great Commission church is usually led by a Great Commission pastor. Church members follow the lead of a Great Commission pastor. But the enemy will do anything in his circumscribed power to hinder a pastor’s work. Such is the reason prayer is so vital.

A FEW AREAS FOR PRAYER

Of course, you can feel free to pray for your pastor in any direction you are led. Let me suggest a few areas that pastors mention the most.

Pray for wisdom for your pastor. The decisions pastors must make are numerous. Some are minor. Some are of major consequence.

Pray for your pastor to have the right priorities. Because of the constant requests and demands that pastors receive, they often respond to the most vocal demand rather than the ones of greatest importance.

Pray for your pastor’s family. Spouses and children often feel the burden of being a part of a pastor’s family. They often sense the eyes of those looking in the glass house. And many of them are hurt and lonely.

Pray for your pastor’s sermons. This includes sermon preparation time as well as the actual delivery of the sermon. More people see and hear the pastor in this relatively short period than at any other time of the week.

Pray for your pastor’s emotional, physical, and spiritual stamina. The work of a pastor’s ministry is demanding, and it can be exhausting. Pastors who are tired are pastors who may get into trouble.

Pray for your pastor’s Great Commission leadership. For sure, we are taking these thirty days to challenge you personally to be a Great Commission Christian. But God intended for Christians to do most of their ministry in the local church. You will be a stronger Great Commission Christian if your church is committed to evangelism. Your church will be a stronger Great Commission church if your pastor is committed to evangelism too. Such is the primary reason we are asking you to pray for your pastor today. By the way, there is nothing wrong with praying for your pastor every day!