It Seems to Me…Pastors Need to Rediscover Acts 6:4
Not too long ago, a national prayer leader sent out an email asking other prayer leaders for feedback. He was preparing to speak at a church staff retreat, a strategic opportunity to advance the cause of prayer in a congregation already having an impact. When my colleague and I connected by phone, he explained how he saw this as a challenge to cast a vision that went beyond the traditional understanding of prayer and the typical style of praying.
While I enjoy speaking with this friend for any reason, I was especially enthused on this occasion, knowing the leadership team recognized they could incorporate more prayer into the life of the congregation. Certainly, my colleague’s teaching would challenge them to integrate prayer into every ministry and activity. When the pastor and core leaders become champions of prayer, it is not long until the culture of small groups and committee meetings and corporate gatherings is transformed.
As we talked, I remembered a statement I first heard many years ago at a prayer conference in San Antonio. (I remember the event but cannot remember the preacher’s name!) Obviously, the preacher’s message was on prayer but he spoke one line that immediately became etched in my memory: “Every church prays, but not every church is a praying church.”
Now a common statement among prayer leaders, back then the Holy Spirit used it as a paradigm shift that gave me a passion to help leaders understand the difference and to pursue it undeterred.
Throughout our conversation, my prayer leader friend and I discussed several implications and applications that could create a new set of expectations for this pastor and his staff. When the leadership of a congregation or ministry becomes seriously devoted to prayer (Colossians 4:2):
- Staff meetings change…Planning meetings change…Church calendars change because the Holy Spirit has greater access to leading the leaders.
- Prayer permeates Sunday services (not just in the 90-second Pastoral Prayer, if there is one).
- Prayer is integrated into every ministry (not merely the prayer ministry), thereby touching the 80% of members who never set foot in a prayer meeting.
- Sunday school classes refocus to pray for the lost, fellowship groups for members’ spiritual formation, and activity groups for community-impacting ministry.
- Outward-focused prayer gets people out of their seats and into the streets (prayer walking) to pray for, care about, and share Christ with their neighbors.
- Outward-focused prayer begins to follow an Acts 1:8 model: neighbors, community/city, Samaria (unloved people groups), the world.
- Serious prayer develops the character of God in members and the church culture: humility, grace, mercy, passion for the Son of God, burden for the nations of the world.
Unless you are brand new to the ministry of prayer, this is familiar territory. The question we must ask, though, is how to make this familiar territory for pastors…most of whom are already juggling too many priorities (should priority even have a plural form?).
About the same time as that phone conversation, I began working on a new website for pastors, The 6:4 Fellowship, led by Jim Cymbala and Daniel Henderson. It is designed to serve pastors around the world to catch the vision for prayer. Based on Acts 6:4, the objective is to make clear the close relation between preaching and prayer. When the apostles declared to the early Church their need to “continue to devote ourselves steadfastly” to prayer and the ministry of the word, they were also making it clear to future leaders that we too must be equally committed to both. Not one or the other. Is it possible the Spirit placed prayer first because so many of us who teach and preach tend to forget or minimize prayer?
Not every pastor is skilled or comfortable leading corporate prayer. Few seminaries offer a class or training for pastors in this area. While church planters are encouraged to enlist prayer supporters, do they receive instruction in how to build a culture of prayer as they birth a church? With so much emphasis on leadership, how many pastors have a book about prayer high on their reading list?
Where am I going with this?
A simple idea: let’s do all we can to lovingly bring Acts 6:4 to our leaders’ attention…may we pray for them by name, that they will devote themselves steadfastly to both prayer and the ministry of the word, and affirm our leaders whenever they bring prayer into the life of the church. Because, it seems to me, pastors need to rediscover Acts 6:4.
(First published at PrayerLeader.com)
(Scroll Comments for "24 Years of Pastors Praying Together)
About Phil Miglioratti: After serving as a pastor for over 20 years, Phil now connects people to God through Prayer INC. He also provides leadership to various ministries including the National Pastors’ Prayer Network, Church Prayer Leaders Network, Pray! Network, and The 6:4 Fellowship.
SCROLL for additional content: Commentary ~ Resources~ Replies ~
24 Years of Pastors Praying Together
The Web of Prayer
Phil Miglioratti ~ Spring 2001 TEDS Bridge
I think five or six of us showed up that June 1990.
We placed our chairs in a small circle and introduced ourselves: “Hi, I’m Al from Palatine … I’m Joe from Arlington Heights … John from Lake Zurich…Gary from Schaumburg.”
They had come to my office to pray, to pray with other pastors.
Even six months prior, only dragging me to pray with other pastors would work. I thought these meetings were intimidating.
On its tenth anniversary the church I pastor still was hovering around the “100 Barrier,” and the last thing I desired was to put a positive spin on how fulfilling that was. The church I had left nine years earlier was growing off the charts; for every one person we added, they added 99! I just did not want to listen to the ministerium wax eloquent about the latest theological fad or nit-pick about another church that didn’t do things exactly right.
Needless to say, my heart needed a spring cleaning.
But spring of 1990 came and with it one of the most exciting times of my spiritual journey. Our church had come into an unexpected time of repentance (we called that morning “Shock Sunday!”). This led to a new awareness and dependence upon the Holy Spirit. Thanks to my co-pastor I found myself in dialogue with another evangelical pastor; he graciously walked me through some basic steps for keeping the church from flying apart at the seams. During one of our discussions he mentioned a group of pastors that had gathered for prayer in the past but lately had not made any effort to.
Then it happened. I asked him for the mailing list. Pastors from a variety of locations and denominations received a postcard in the mail from some other pastor with an unpronounceable last name and from an unheard, “no-name” church.
That June meeting in 1990 began the Pastors’ Prayer Group, and since then we have met every week for prayer [that group continues on without me as my role has changed].
The Pastors’ Prayer Group is a strategic component in the exploding global prayer movement. Alongside Pastors’ Prayer Summits, the National Day of Prayer, Prayerwalks, Prayer Journeys, and a growing list of others, the Pastors’ Prayer Group has a unique contribution to make to the overall refining and restructuring of the church. They are an invitation to band together with fellow pastors. So far, nearly 300 [now over 800 @ nppn.org] Pastors’ Prayer Groups have registered.
This isn’t about becoming prominent in your community, nor is it the latest technique of church growth. The call to lead or network a Pastors Prayer Group is a call to submission, sacrifice, and service: unreturned phone calls, unanswered letters, under-attended gatherings. But not these alone. It also entails overflowing joy and overcoming confidence in the presence of the Lord!