Pray Network Forum

Recently, my church has started searching for a pastor and has set up a Pastoral Search Committee. We are currently in the administrative part of our duties-developing candidate questions. Since our committee is quite diverse—a number of different focuses/talents/functions in the body—the questions will undoubtedly be diverse. We are working on format of the questions—I.E.—Initial interview, Written Questions to follow-ups, and a second Interview.

Being the Prayer Chairman of the committee, (This position has been described in the Tennessee Baptist church) I have submitted questions on prayer for the candidates. I would appreciate feedback from the folks on Pray.Network as to their applicability, change to them that might help in discernment, thoughts to consider, and such like. Being strongly focused on prayer, this list is quite extensive—Please—do not be afraid to show ways to shorten it and still keep the list effective.—My thanks for constructive thoughts.

Here are the questions that I have submitted:
Prayer Related Pastoral Search Prayer Questions
Compiled Feb 17, 2018

I. Questions for first phone interview:
• Is prayer best kept quiet and personal, or is corporate prayer important?

• Explain how prayer can help you connect with others and bring the body of the church together.

• Why does praying together encourage connecting and possibly friendship

• How important is it to recognize past history within a church?

• If God calls you to a church or ministry—what vision do you follow? Your vision? Or the vision that God has for that church/ministry? Explain your answer.

• Give evidence of how you released people in to God’s work? Was that releasing just into your church’s ministry or other or both?

• What prayer organizations are you familiar with?

• Do you see any value in the prayer leader’s associations?

• What are your feelings about joining with other churches and pastors for prayer?

II. Questions requiring written answers:

1. Please discuss your understanding of intercessory prayer and how it works today. In your discussion please cover the following points below.
• What is your understanding of intercessory prayer and what it does involve.
• What do you feel is the role of intercessors?
• What is your greatest issue with intercessors? Why?
• How would you respond to an intercessor who has a differing vision from yours?
• How would you encourage and intercessor?
• Many think intercessors are mature and spiritual giants? Explain your answer.

Please explain:
• How would you respond to an intercessor who has a differing vision from yours?
• Should a person be a prayer leader who is an intercessor or one who understands prayer and intercessors? Explain your answer. Is there a need for intercessors in a church if you have morning prayer time, and other corporate prayer?

2. Prayer Practice within a church and the surrounding community:
• Would you be willing to work with other churches in the community on projects? Share your thoughts on this.
• How would you draw the line in working with other churches, including praying with them?
• Of the prayer meetings that you have conducted, what method of prayer brings the most out of prayer? Why?
• How would you define sustaining prayer, and how would you encourage it?
• When we pray—what is your basis for using or not using the Word of God in prayer?
• Is prayer instruction needed? What resources would you use to encourage/teach people to pray together? Can you teach about prayer from your personal experience?
• Can you outline some thoughts that would train people in prayer and lead the church to become a house of prayer? Share some of them.

3. Take a few words and describe your church’s prayer ministry? Describe key aspects of your past ministry.

4. How important is corporate prayer—the whole church coming together to pray—explain.

5. Are there stages of humility?—please explain your answer

6. What resource books on prayer have you read?

7. -Every church needs a prayer champion. Will you be that person? And how will you equip us to pray.

Relationships within the Body of Christ
1. Response to others
• When a person says I do not connect—what does that mean?
• How would you react to a person who does not want to spell out medical conditions as to why they have a hard time of being on time. Such issues may be IBS, Heart rythym issues, and other medical conditions that we not being doctors have only limited understanding. They are willing to do much behind the scenes. Explain.

2. The following question deals with items that could block prayer: Please consider the following in answering this question.
• What blocks prayer? Is judgment really a sin problem, and can it block prayer? Explain your answer.
• How do we grieve the Holy Spirit?—explain how our attitude or response can grieve the Holy Spirit. Can the justification of a position on scripture, and interpretation, grieve the Lord? Why?
• Explain what it means to justify a deed or action or decision?—Does justifying a deed block our prayers?
• We may justify our actions—but is justifying evidence of really listening to the other person? Sometimes the Bible is very clear—sometimes our justification comes from our perception. Elaborate on this.

3. What does forgiveness do?
• Does forgiveness mean forgetting?
• Someone has forgiven, but keeps brining an issue back up, what should they do?

4. How are acts of silence and ignoring perceived as throwing stones—or—what do they communicate.

5. Correcting wrongs:
• Is it enough just to turn away and and correct a worng? Explain
• In correcting wrongs—when should we go back to the roots? Explain
• What can happen when the root that led to a wrong is not cleared?
• Issue of 2nd bounce syndrome—a second bounce syndrome is where we think and issue is cleared and find that the issue is not really resolved—what are your thoughts on this—and how should it be handled in love and Biblically?

6. Questions related to service and ministry
• A person is called to serve, but you see relational issues that are apparent with them. How would you respond to them? Explain.
• A person has a ministry. How would you involve that ministry in the local church body?

7. -How would you describe your personal prayer life—elaborate

III. Questions for the last interview:

1. Explain how one hears from God

2. -What do you want to say that we have not asked you?

3. -What questions do you want to ask about prayer in our church that will help you discern our strengths and weaknesses?

4. What do you feel about a group praying for you during your message?

5. What do you feel about the statement, ‘Look for where God is working and join Him’. Who proposed this principle of action?

From time to time I have enjoyed rereading some of my favorite books. There are several books that I revisit every few years. I recently took up The Robe that I hadn't read for about 25 years. I was amazed by how much of it I did not remember. I do not mean I did not remember certain parts until I had reread them. Most of it struck me like a book I had never read. This is a fairly new and embarrassing experience for me. This past weekend we went on a short trip with my daughter's family. I was shuffling through books my granddaughter had brought to read and discovered, Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life. I begin to read and laugh out loud with delight. I told my granddaughter I needed to borrow the book from her. I was quickly informed that it was my book. Sure enough I turned back to the flyleaf and discovered that the book was given me with a marvelous dedication from a friend who happens to be a really good writer.

I have recently had several far more embarrassing incidents of memory loss. This is not my worst handicap. And I have had to ask myself if they will hinder my ability to write. The answer that came to me immediately was, 'They won't, if I do not let them.” Most of us who know God wants us to write have to work through numerous handicaps.

My favorite fiction writer is Bodie Thoene. She and her husband Brock research their their historical novels together. They have over 35 million books in print in more than 35 languages. I once heard them interviewed at the end of one of their audio books. I was amazed to learn that Bodie is dyslexic and has found it too painful to reread her own books. This is something like Beethoven writing the 9th Symphony and other marvelous works after he was completely deaf.

What are your weaknesses? All of us have them. But if you will not let them they probably will not keep you from putting words up on the computer screen and publishing them to bless lives.

Now, I fear I have been a little too simplistic. Handicaps can be terribly difficult to work through. And despite the two examples I gave, some of them are absolutely impossible to overcome as a writer. However, I do believe there are three obedient actional attitudes to apply to your weaknesses.

One of them is conviction. Do you sense a compulsion, possibly even a calling from God? Do not give up because what you face is difficult.

Another is endurance. Stay at it, work at it. Think continually about ways to cope with it or get around it. When I brought up some evidences of my memory loss to my 10 year old granddaughter she immediately begin to tell me about a study done with nuns who remained sharp because they continued to be mentally active. And it was discovered by postmortem pathologies of their brains that they actually had full-blown Alzheimer's. They had staved off the effects by keeping mentally and physically active. You can look this study up it's easy to find on Google. Whatever your handicap, don't give up on it.

Finally, and most important, pray about it. Of course God may take away your thorn In the flesh. But in many cases God will glorify Himself by turning your weakness into strength as you obey Him.

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Jesus said it in Matthew Chapter 7. “You can't grow grapes from thorn bushes.” This applies to every area of our lives from running a marathon to raising your children. And it especially applies to writing which is the fruit of your soul. I remember reading something Baxter Black wrote on how he began writing poetry. He told about writing a poem with a religious theme for an English class in college. He got the paperback with the words writ large and in red across the top of the page, “WRITE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW!” Who does not agree with this principle? You must write what you think. You write about what you care about. And yes, you write who you are. Your own character is the foundation of all your writing.

I recently read a quote by Danielle Steel, a secular writer, in a secular book on writing.

“Where do the ideas come from? I don't really know. I've always had a deeply religious feeling about my writing. I feel very unimportant in the scheme of it all. I pray a lot before I start a book and as I work through it. And the less important I feel the better the book goes.”

Let me deal briefly here with four aspects of prayer that are essential to writing.

INTIMACY

We spend time in prayer to develop intimacy with God. The more time you spend in direct fellowship with God the more He shapes your character.

REPENTANCE

Character development is painful. We need to allow God to make changes in our lives. And we have to come to Him with a tender heart repenting of attitudes and actions that do not please Him.

NOURISHMENT

To get the most nourishment we need to pray the word of God. We take prayer to the level of meditation by memorizing a scripture and then thinking about it over time, maybe several days.

Many years ago I pastored church in a rural community in Texas. I am convinced that during the five years I served there a man who died shortly before I came continued to have the most Godly influence of anyone in that community. His wife told me every morning as he began his day he would fix a Bible verse in his mind. Then he would repeat that verse over and over all day long. And God developed his character and multiplyied the fruit of his life.

PRAISE

Praise is sometimes a neglected element of our prayer life. And yet nothing that I know of develops faith, courage, hope, joy, or peace as thoroughly as praising God for who He is and what He does.

MISSION

Do you spend time talking to God about His mission for your life? Sense of mission it is essential to the attractiveness and benefit of your writing. This is of course true in writing Christian non-fiction. But it is also an underlying foundation for all writing, fiction or nonfiction.

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There is a notion that someone believes the gospel or not, but there can not be any evidence of it. In fact the proof of the gospel is integral to the presentation itself. On the Day of Pentecost Peter stood before the people and reminded them of the miracles Jesus had done among them which they knew.

I recently heard Tim Keller tell about a man who told a pastor he would believe if he could be shown airtight proof. The pastor said, “”Read the New Testament.” “Will that show me an airtight argument?” he asked. “No, but God gave us an air tight person.” It is difficult to read The New Testament without being impressed with Jesus.

Peter went on to declare that God raised Jesus from the dead, “and we are all witnesses.”

You may be familiar with Vince Vitale, now the Director of The Zacharias Institute in Atlanta.Vince has a PHD from The University of Oxford. He went off to college as a secularist, believing all truth claims were equal. But there his thinking was challenged for the first time. Someone gave him a Bible and invited him to read it. For some time he read skeptically, labeling things he thought unscientific with “b.s.” But as he came to the resurrection of Jesus and studied a little, learning that the resurrection was confirmed early, publically, by multiple witnesses. The testimonies of the witnesses went against their culture. It radically transformed their lives. They willingly, even joyfully gave their lives maintaining their testimony.

This was too much. How could he explain these testimonies? He made an appointment with the two leading New Testament scholars at Princeton where he was studying. Neither were believers, so he was sure they would explain away this problem. But one of them half-heartedly posed the theory of mass hallucination, which, incidentally does not exist. There is no such thing as mass hallucination. The other simply said, “As an historian, I'm not interested in the question.” What was he to do? While still at Princeton Vince gave his life to Christ.

In Acts 2:32 Peter declared,

“This Jesus God raised up, and of that we are all Witnesses.”

Who were the witnesses included in that declaration? Peter was referring to those believers who were present. That included Thomas who would not believe if he could not touch His hands and side pierced by the soldiers. It probably included James, the brother of Jesus who didn't believe until Jesus rose from the dead. It may not have included Stephen who was later martyred asking God not to count the sin of those stoning him against them, and crying out that he saw Jesus seated by the Majesty on High. It did not include Paul who met Him on the road, and it could not have included all 500 people who saw Him at one time.

But there are still others who are witnesses of the living Christ working in their lives. Are you among them? Has He made a radical difference in your life? If so you too are a witness of His resurrection. You know he rose from the dead because of the difference He has made in your life. Others will see that evidence in you. And that means you know that He is Lord.

Acts 2:36 reads,

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

This is the last of several blog entries taken from a sermon I preached at Crosspoint Church in

, NV. You can find the recording and other good things on their website.  http://crosspoint.org/index.php/2016-06-01-08-45-06/274-now-to-him-who-is-able-listen-carefully

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The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him.
-Daniel 9:9
Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you toward repentance?
-Romans 2:4

There’s no other place except in God’s character where both perfect justice and perfect mercy are balanced. We can’t try to measure his grace and mercy, or any other part of his personality, by our standards or experience—there is no other example on earth of such fairness!

A holy and perfect God doesn’t have to be merciful. He could administer his justice every day according to his laws and be perfect and holy. Did you ever wonder what it would be like if this really were the case? Imagine this: Put together a perfect God, a fallen and imperfect humanity, and nothing but justice (getting what we deserve for our crimes) every minute of every day. Doesn’t that sound like misery and bondage? It is.

We learn from the Bible that God’s mercy goes beyond any of our expectations. His compassion and forgiveness is over the top. We can’t view God’s mercy as the kind we parcel out ever so modestly and self-righteously to others. When we humans are merciful, it comes with all kinds of warnings, qualifications, and conditions. Our generosity never goes beyond the limits of our goodness (which is usually rather limited to begin with).

But true mercy takes seriously the gravity of sin and failure. It isn’t just turning a blind eye to evil. That isn’t mercy anyway, that’s moral indifference. Mercy is the deep and abiding love and patience of God toward the creatures he made. It can be partly understood by loving parents who fully realize the rebelliousness of their child, but who still envision their loved one’s (ever so slowly) coming to maturity.

Just like petulant children, we complain that God should give us a break, or do this or that for us, only because we’ve been conditioned by generations of Christian culture and theology to know him as merciful. This is one more example that we’re pretty well spoiled. The gods of the ancient civilizations were considered not merciful by nature. So no one could complain that they were acting out of character when people believed them to be capricious, cruel, or unconcerned.

There is a huge difference between a culture built on God’s grace and mercy and one that is not. This truth hits home when we in our travels have the unfortunate experience of seeing someone hit by a speeding car and left there for hours, bleeding to death. It suddenly dawns on us that we can’t take mercy for granted. It doesn’t just automatically pop into existence out of nothing. People tend to behave like the gods they worship.

And what a relief for us! God is merciful.

Do we have a right to demand mercy from God?

Absolutely not.

If all we ever got were his perfect justice (the worst anyone will ever get), we still would have no grounds for complaining that God was unfair. What isn’t obligatory of a perfect God, just so happens to be part of his character.

He doesn’t have to be, but he is. And that means we can live life with the confidence that whatever we get ourselves into, there really is a court of appeals in session twenty-four hours a day where mercy is not the exception, but the main order of the day. God’s favorite (but never required) function as judge is to say, “I’ve chosen to show mercy. You’re totally forgiven, your list of offenses has been expunged from the record, and you’re free to go.”

This Lent rather than just giving up something (you can if you want to), open wide your arms to receive grace upon grace—the mercy, forgiveness, and healing power of your loving Father.

On the day of Pentecost Peter stood and declared the gospel to people from all nations. He got to the heart of it proclaiming the death and resurrection of Jesus. Verse 23 says some significant things about the gospel.

“This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”

The cross of Jesus was not an afterthought. God was not surprised. The crucifixion of Jesus was in God's heart before the foundation of the Earth. Before you had ever committed any sin, before Adam and Eve turned the human race away from God's plan, a loving God knew what it would cost Him to redeem you, to restore us to fellowship with Him.

This ought to effect the way we look at people God has brought into our lives. Getting a grip on this will give us great confidence in the gospel that we have to share. You can be sure when you begin to interact with someone, that God has already been at work in them. God still loves people even when He knows they will reject Him. He is showing them His grace by sending you to tell them they could turn to Him if they would.

When we share Christ we are joining in God's plan from everlasting to everlasting.

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Luke 11:5-13: A Friend at Night

And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence he will rise and give him whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”

Luke 18:1-8: The Parable of the Persistent Widow

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

Think about this: You’re stranded at a lonely diner, alongside the road, not far from the town where you live. It’s Saturday morning at 3:00 a.m. You know you have to call someone to pick you up, but you can’t think of just the right person. Your mind runs quickly through your database searching for a friend close enough to be awakened in the middle of the night and not be really annoyed.

Question: Do you have such a friend?

The two parables of Jesus in Luke 11 and 18 teach us some things about God that we need to know:

1) God is our friend in the middle of the night. He’s the only one in the universe who’s on duty 24/7, and who is tuned into our voice. It’s he who listens with the care of our closest friend.

2) Jesus teaches us to ask things of God with our whole heart, concern, and energy. We are to ask boldly, to keep on asking, and to never give up.

3) Prayer is the serious vocation of the Christian, and when we find it hard to pray God helps us by putting us in situations where there is no way out except God’s faithfulness and deliverance.

4) Our relationship with God is much like a child’s relationship with the parent. If a loving parent enjoys giving good things to their child, so much more does God enjoy giving us the things we really need.

5) God answers pray according to purpose—his! And when we find our will more and more in line with his purpose and will, we’ll discover that more of our prayers are being answered.

So where’s the good news and what are we to do?

First, start asking, praying to, God for the things you want and need. He’s listening—any hour of the day or night. And find your purpose and fulfillment in life by doing the will of God as he reveals it to you. He doesn’t guarantee everything you want, but he can guarantee that in the discipline of daily prayer, you’ll learn submission, faith, and in the end God’s great, out of proportion generosity.

Thanks be to God!

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. -Mark 10:45

This saying of Jesus comes close to giving us our job description for earthly life. It occurs in a context of some wanting special standing and privilege. Jesus responds by pointing out that if the Son of Man himself came into the world to be a servant of all—in other words, to be a person living and dying for others—then his followers must see that as their vocation as well. The apostle Paul makes much the same point in Philippians 2:9-11.

Jesus, the Man for others, gave his life for us. He died in our place for our sins; he paid the price that we couldn’t pay. In doing so, he lived out his teaching that this is the key to human life in general. And this is exactly what millions have discovered over the centuries: true joy and fulfillment on this earth lie not in doing our own will and accumulating more and more things for ourselves, but in giving them and ourselves away to others.

Who are those who come to the end of life with a sense of really having lived well and to the fullest? Who among us have the fewest hang-ups and neuroses, the least guilt, and fewest regrets? It’s those who have willingly and joyfully given up the heavy burden of trying to fulfill themselves first and moved full steam ahead into the task of helping, feeding, sheltering, rescuing, and loving others. This fact is the easiest thing in the world to prove.

Some of the happiest people you will ever meet are those whose lives are spent in some form of sacrifice for others, who give their time and energies to the Gospel and to the work of lifting up those on the bottom rung of the ladder—physically, materially, or emotionally. More and greater joy is found in giving rather than taking. This is one of life’s greatest secrets. This truth gives us a key to how we are actually built. This may seem to most people upside down, because it goes against everything our culture tells us about the key to happiness and success, but it is the consistent testimony of all who’ve tried it.

This is also a good guide to our practice of prayer. Perhaps we would receive more answers to prayer if we spent more time interceding for the needs and welfare of others and less on ourselves. What many have found is that if we live this type of cheerful, God-dependent, self-forgetfulness many of our needs and desires will be met in the process, even without asking.

So if you're grieving or in pain, how does this help you? It’s counter-intuitive, but true: our pain starts to heal when we invest our lives in the pain of others. When all our instincts tell us to hide somewhere and nurse our sorrow in solitude, the best medicine is to turn outward toward the brokenhearted around us and assist in helping them with their suffering. Try it—it works. And what enables us to get close to them and to truly care for (and feel) their pain is what we’re now going through.

Father, I’m unable to turn from my own pain to that of others unless you grant me the grace and power to do it. It’s not in me, so you must do it through me. Amen.

24-7 prayer has some very encouraging stuff on their blog

 https://www.24-7prayer.com/blog

 Testimony of Brian Heasly (international director of 24-7), also a pop-up prayer van,

videos,

an invitation to join the Global Wave of Prayer 10-20 May, 2018 Thy Kingdom come

https://www.thykingdomcome.global/

Exciting and joyful!