Don’t Neglect The Greatest Power & Priority In Ministry
Introduction
If you are anything like me, you know that prayer ought to be the simplest, most natural, most easily dispensed pastoral activity of our office. Yet it is too often the most readily neglected. How often we fall prey to the mindset of the tyranny of the urgent, the pressure to be productive: “I don’t have an hour to pray or a half hour to pray! I’ve got two sermons to write, a session docket to prep for this evening, that Sunday school lesson to organize, that report to read for presbytery, and that article to send to a certain editor that he’s already asked for five times and was due a week ago!”
Big Responsibilities Can Choke Out Prayer
To be sure, those aforementioned items must not be neglected. Of course, it is our duty and privilege to feed Christ’s sheep from the soul-nourishing storehouse of God’s Word. Study and lesson organization, meditation and adequate sermon preparation for Lord’s Day teaching, and other times of public instruction are non-negotiable responsibilities of being an elder. Likewise, part of our calling as elders is our involvement in the work of the courts of the church, such as our obligations to our local presbytery: attending, voting, reading up on matters coming before the court, actively serving and participating in various committees, etc. We must not neglect or wave away such responsibilities.
There are administrative duties that might not seem terribly “pastoral,” but are because they facilitate the ministry of the church. And, frankly, they are necessary in a world that is inhabited by functioning adults: phone calls and emails, coordinating with elders regarding business and ministry matters, hospital and home visits, filing paperwork with the church treasurer, arranging the upcoming worship service liturgies and ensuring the bulletin is accurate. Maybe there’s time to create an occasional article or podcast that might be edifying to the congregation or the wider church. These are all good things and can all be profitable—some of them more or less necessary.
Ordained To Pray
Though the aforementioned things are, for the most part, indispensable aspects to an elder’s vocation, one aspect that is far too often neglected or relegated to the margins of one’s schedule is that of prayer. Prayer is an entire third of ordinary means of grace ministry (Westminster Larger Catechism 154) and is one out of the two dimensions of the elder’s devotion in Acts 6:4.
Brothers, this must not be. How many of us have far too low a view of prayer and, as betrayed by our actions, consider it an all-too-easily expendable thing?
We know the quip attributed to Martin Luther (likely apocryphally), where he said, “Work, work from early until late. In fact, I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer.” (1) It sounds nice, and perhaps we assent to it at some level, but inwardly we perhaps roll our eyes: “Get real, Martin. Enough with the exaggerated piety. Who has time for that? After all, wasn’t that just a characteristic Luther hyperbole?”
Perhaps, but brothers, it belongs to the office of elder and pastor to pray. We all know well the wonderful passage from Acts 6:1-4:
Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
The text does not say, “We will dabble in prayer,” or “We will lead times of prayer on Sundays and Wednesdays,” or “We will occasionally engage ourselves in prayer.” No, the apostles said, “We will give ourselves continually to prayer.”
No Success In Ministry Without Prayer
I hope to encourage you all as much as I point the finger at myself. I must pray. There can be no hope of spiritual success without it. How our souls need it; how our ministry needs it; prayer ought to be as natural and obvious a component to our ministry as air is to a balloon or water is to a swimming pool—how ridiculous to have one thing without the other!
My friend, David Irving, put it this way in his wonderful little booklet on the subject, “Brother pastors, it is your duty to be devoted to prayer for your people. To put it bluntly, it is your job to pray…You are Christian ministers. You pray. Prayer is your job.” (2)
Dr. Irving also points out some choice quotes from other theological lights of days gone by. Charles Bridges wrote, “Prayer therefore is one half of our Ministry; and it gives to the other half all its power and success.” (3)
J.C. Ryle, commenting on Mark 6:30–34, wrote,
“Prayer is the main secret in spiritual business.… It brings down the promised aid of the Holy Ghost, without whom the finest sermons, the clearest teaching, and the most diligent working, are all alike in vain.… The question we should ask about a new minister, is not merely ‘Can he preach well?’ but ‘Does he pray much for his people and his work?’” (4)
Finally, John Calvin, commenting on Acts 6:4, wrote,
Pastors must not think that they have so done their duty that they need to do no more when they have daily spent some time in teaching. There is another manner of study, another manner of zeal, another manner of continuance required, that they may indeed boast that they are wholly given to that thing. They adjoin thereunto prayer.… Again, we must always remember that, that we shall lose all our labor bestowed upon plowing, sowing, and watering, unless the increase come from heaven (1 Cor. iii. 7.) Therefore, it shall not suffice to take great pains in teaching, unless we require the blessing at the hands of the Lord, that our labor may not be vain and unfruitful. (5)
Conclusion
Therefore, brothers, if we would have any success in our churches, in our own souls, the souls of our people, or in the life of the PCA, pray. Pray daily. Consider time in prayer just as indispensable to your work as outlining your sermon, translating the Greek, or consulting your commentaries. Pray for yourselves and your ministry and your family. Pray for your people. Pray for the ministry of your church, our denomination, and the cause of the gospel. Set aside deliberate and intentional time each day in your study to give yourself not only to the ministry of the Word, but to the ministry of prayer.
Let us avail ourselves of that oft-neglected one half of the ministry; let us take hold of the power. Let us pray.
(1) Official Report of the Fifteenth International Christian Endeavor Convention (Boston: United Society of Christian Endeavor, 1896), 221.
(2) David T. Irving, Devote Yourself to Prayer: A Call to Pastors (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2023), 6.
(3) Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry: With an Inquiry into the Causes of Its Inefficiency, rev. ed. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2009), 148. Emphasis mine.
(4) J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels: Mark (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2015), 97.
(5) John Calvin, Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles, vol. 18 of Calvin’s Commentaries, ed. Henry Beveridge (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979), 236–37.