I doubt any pastor would argue with this statement: “Faithful pastors are praying pastors.” I also doubt that any pastor wouldn’t simultaneously say, “I wish I was more faithful in private prayer.” The great Bishop Ryle knew this struggle well as he said, “Let us pray more heartily in private, and throw our whole souls more into our prayers.”
There are many things a pastor can do to see the consistency of private prayer grow in his ministry, but let me encourage you to one specific resource that you may “pray more heartily in private.”
A church directory.
AN UNDERRATED CATALYST FOR PRIVATE PRAYER
A directory can come in many different forms these days, but I personally prefer an old school paper directory complete with essential contact info and pictures. My goal is to pray through one page of the directory, sixteen people on average, each day. This simple commitment has done wonders for my prayer life and pastoral ministry.
First, praying through a church directory encourages specific prayer. In my experience and observation, most pastors seem to spend most of their prayer time hovering way up in the sky with their requests. We offer broad, and biblical, petitions like: “Help us to be faithful in disciple-making,” “give us teachable hearts,” and “mold us into the likeness of Christ.” All good and necessary prayers for sure! But faithful pastoring means getting down into the trenches, even with our prayer requests. A church directory helps with this. Praying through individual names means I am, necessarily, offering specific intercessions that I wouldn’t otherwise probably be making. Intercessions for their children, jobs,
Second, praying through a church directory encourages consistent prayer. I block off time in the middle of each afternoon to pray for our church. Having the goal of praying through one page per day gives that time not only structure, but consistency. Even if nothing else pops into my mind for church-centric prayer, having the directory on hand gives me at least sixteen different people to pray for.
Third, praying through a church directory encourages public prayer. In his timeless little work on prayer JC Ryle said, “You may be vary sure people fall in private long before they fall in public.” If we are falling in private prayer we are undoing our public prayer. A maxim we pastors ought to live by in this area is, “He who fails in private prayer will fail in public prayer.” I know this to be true on a week by week basis. Those weeks where private prayer is lax, I feel my public prayer cold. Those weeks where private prayer is vibrant, I feel my public prayer has more heat. If a church directory indeed encourages specific and consistent private prayer, we can be sure that it is also fueling our public prayer in profound ways.
Fourth, praying through a church directory encourages peaceful unity. Ephesians 4:3 calls us to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Colossians 3:15 commands the church to “let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.” Just the other day one of our elder candidates said, “You know I looked around the room during gathered worship and I felt such joy that I get to worship with this body. And I think it is because of your encouragement to pray through the directory.” Why might he say that? I believe it’s because intercessory prayer helps build chords of unity within the body in ways nothing else can. We all know, intuitively, the power prayer has to overcome the pettiness and prejudice we can have towards our brothers and sisters in Christ. Prayer kills the weeds that quench peaceful unity. Simply put, it’s hard to remain frustrated with people you consistently pray for.
So then, praying through a church directory is, probably, much more than a catalyst for private prayer. It might just be a catalyst toward church health. You might want to give it a try.