Pray For Your Pastor

The pastoral ministry is an especially difficult calling. A good minister, like the Good Shepherd he serves, spends himself to exhaustion and gives himself sacrificially for the flock under his care. The labor is particularly demanding because not only is a gospel minister the special target of everything in this world, both seen and unseen, that hates Christ and wants to see his Kingdom fall (as if that were possible), but he also suffers from the assaults of the people whom he serves. He's too dull; he's too passionate. He preaches too long; he preaches to lite. Too much doctrine; too many stories. I just don't like him. He's not the man we had before, or the man I heard at the conference.

Bill Shishko, may pastor at Franklin Square Orthodox Presbyterian Church, is a thoroughly sound and remarkably pastoral preacher, and he recently preached on the importance of praying for your pastor (or, if you are a pastor, the importance of resting in prayer for blessing in your ministry).

Having cautioned the Christians in Ephesus to equip themselves spiritually with the full armor of God and to pray at all times for all the brothers and sisters in Christ, Paul adds a special request to pray for him in particular. He says to pray, "also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak" (6:19f. ESV).

I will not attempt to reproduce the sermon, or even the sermon outline, but only offer some wisdom that I gleaned from the message.

When you pray for your minister, you are praying for yourself. Paul instructed Timothy, "Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for in so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers" (1 Timothy 4:16). Your minister feeds your soul from the word of God. As he thrives, in due course you will thrive.

The minister's vices often become a virus in the church. When he goes astray, he takes a large part of the church with him into destructive error.

Pray for the minister in his preaching, research, devotional reading, broader reading, prayer life, thought life, counseling, local church government, wider denominational responsibilities, private encounters, family life, finances, worries and encouragement. He is not a rock. Christ is the Rock. He is a sinner like you, a broken vessel through whose weakness God manifests his strength and glory.

A minister's family faces special challenges. There are unique strains on his marriage and pressures on his children. Breakdown in his family has a profound effect through him on the church, on visitors to the church, and on those who are watching the church. Pray for them.

The minister feeds his sheep by his preaching; the flock supports the minister by their prayer.

Before you criticize your pastor, pray for him. No, first develop a history of praying for him.