Category Archives: Pastoral Ministry

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Pastoral Postcard – Above Reproach

Pastoral PostcardEvery few weeks I try to write a “Pastoral Postcard,” a post that aims to encourage pastors in the work of ministry. I take one verse of Scripture and apply it to the blessings and afflictions every gospel minister experiences. The postcards originate from a time when I was preaching through 1 Timothy while reading Thomas Boston’s The Art of Man-Fishing. As a young pastor myself, I tried to channel my inner Boston and write short-ish notes to encourage my labor. Hopefully they can be some encouragement to you.

“If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach.” – 1 Timothy 3:1-2

Pastor, you are to be a boring picture of godliness.

When the great apostle requires that elders be “above reproach” he is requiring that your life be one free of popular suspicions and charges of sin or immorality. This doesn’t mean you are to be perfect, rather it means that your life will be visibly virtuous.

A VISIBLE LIFE

Faithful shepherds always lead their sheep from the front, thus a faithful pastor will ordinarily be leading from a place of visibility. You know this to be true. From the minute you – and your family – walk through the church doors you are walking into a holy display case. Your actions will be observed and your words will be heard. From the moment you enter this display case the Serpent will try to smash its shell. He will tempt your congregation to be cruel in their judgment of you, so that you will crumble. Or, should your congregation be faithful, he will try to cause you to crumble under your own sinful expectations of perfection that you cry out in despair, “I am not worthy!” If theses schemes don’t work, be assured that the Worm is still slinking around in his sly subtlety.

Have you ever noticed the great number of pastors who delight in keeping to themselves, pastors who cherish seclusion? You are likely one of them. God seems pleased to create His lieutenants in such a way that their introversion leads unto daily swims in the deep things. Remind yourself that the Serpent is pleased by this trait as well. He is familiar with the Spirit’s Sword and the Sovereign One’s desire for shepherds to be examples to the flock. Therefore, you can expect him to aim fiery darts of sinful isolation at your breastplate. To be an example you must be visible, so why should he not try to get you to be invisible? If you keep to yourself, have no friends, stay away from regularly engaging with your town, and don’t regularly lead your sheep in public ways, know the Worm is probably winning the battle. Winning by keeping you invisible.

Cultivate then a heart that mirrors the eternal Three in One, a heart that is outgoing and communicative. Don’t only open the Good Book in your study or on the sacred desk, open it with brothers and sisters as you go from home to home to offer the Whole Counsel. Sin and Satan want you to be sinfully invisible or visibly sinful; God requires that you be visibly virtuous.

A VISIBLY VIRTUOUS LIFE

The apostle’s understands visible virtuousness for he exhorts his son in the faith to, “Set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.” This is what it means to be above reproach, to be visibly virtuous.

Be visibly virtuous in speech. You are called to speak of the unsearchable riches of Christ, but don’t let the Good News come from your mouth only when you ascend to the desk. Season all of your speech with the savor of Christ. Resist the temptation of your age to casual colloquialism, but labor in the language of the Loved One. If your speech is accused, let it be accused of having too much faith, hope, and love. Load your heart with the treasures of Christ so that they pour from your lips.

Be visibly virtuous in conduct. You are placed in the holy display case because the Spirit is at work in you to exude a kind of godliness that shapes your sheep. Your actions are to be echoes of the Savior, even if they are often faint echoes. You must daily slay the pride of life to that your life displays and declares the exalted Prize of Eternal Life.

Be visibly virtuous in love. Love is the only thing that will remain in eternity, so let it be the dominant accent of this life. The Serpent will labor to enslave you to love of self or love of the world, but you must terminate his labor with the Spirit’s power. Let your ministry be a two chord song of love, love for your God and love for your people.

Be visibly virtuous in faith. Everything depends on faith, for whatever is not from faith is sin. You were saved by faith and you are being sanctified by faith. The eyes of faith are ones that delight in looking above, looking to where Christ is seated. His is your life and faith alone is what takes hold of that life. Be on guard against doubt and despair, things that come from looking down far too much. Mr. M’Cheyne has it right when he exhorts, “For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ.”

Be visibly virtuous in purity. You know how much the Serpent delights to slay shepherds through impurity, so expect peculiar temptations in this area. Be filled with the Spirit and give no opportunity to the Worm. He wants a foothold here so that he might give a scandal to the scandalized world, but you must close the door of your heart, lock it, and throw away the key. Pray for a mind captivated by, and with, the Beautiful One.

Being above reproach means being beyond spiritual suspicion . . . thus, you shouldn’t surprise your sheep. You should be gloriously boring in godliness. Visibly virtuous pastors are boringly bright pastors who shine and burn for the glory of God.

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3 Devices to Drive Out Deception

Fight the Good Fight

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared,who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer. – 1 Timothy 4:1-5

In 1 Timothy 1 Paul commands his young protege to remove the false teaching prevailing in the Ephesian church and wage the good warfare of faith. In the passage above we get an idea of how these two aspects of ministry are related. The first two verses reveal three characteristics of false teaching: it is 1) a mark of the later times, and 2) comes from deceptive demons and 3) lying leaders. False teaching is rarely overt, in fact, this passage shows us just how covert false teaching is. Instead of blatantly rejected the deity of Christ or the inerrancy of the Bible the false teachers were advocating an ascetic theology – forbidding marriage and the eating of particular foods.

How then are God’s people to fight against such subtlety? Notice three devices Paul gives in this text to drive out deception . . .

Truth drives out deception.  Paul says that the blessings of marriage and food are to be received by people who believe and know the truth. When Paul writes of the armor of God in Ephesians 6 he begins with the belt of truth. As Thomas Brooks said, “Men take no hold of error till they have let go their hold of truth, therefore hold fast to truth.”1   Holding fast to truth means devotion to the Word.  Hearing the word preached is an underestimated battering ram of truth against the enemy’s fortress of deception.  Reading the word with humble devotion illuminates the mind and heart, driving out the darkness of deception.  Speaking the truth to one another in discipling relationships is vital and necessary, for truth is a community treasure (Eph. 4:17).  In everything we hold fast to Christ, for He is the truth.

Thanksgiving drives out deception.  Two times Paul says that we are to receive God’s gifts with thanksgiving.  In another letter he says, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:18).  Just how does thanksgiving drive out deception?  Thanksgiving is little more than remembering and acknowledging God – for who He is and what He has done.  To give thanks in everything is to hold fast to God in everything.  He is a mighty fortress, a bulwark never failing. Thanksgiving places our souls next to this bulwark.

Holiness drives out deception. We see in this text that the false teachers advocated a false holiness, which Paul combats with a right understanding of holiness. Jesus said that we are made holy in truth (John 17:17) and the Spirit’s work of holiness produces the fruit of thanksgiving (Eph. 5:20).  We can be sure that where holiness reigns, truth and thanksgiving thrive.  The beauty of these devices is that they all fuel one another; pursuing truth brings holiness and thanksgiving, pursuing holiness dives the soul deeper into the truth and thanksgiving, and increased thanksgiving grows truth and holiness.  Church, we must be about the pursuit of holiness. You want to strive against Satan? Strive for holiness.

Root yourself in Christ by faith and wage the good warfare against Satan’s deception by wielding truth, thanksgiving, and holiness.

  1.  Brooks, Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices, 59. ↩
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Preaching’s Difficult Distinction

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One of the most difficult distinctions in preaching is arguably its most vital.

It is the distinction of preaching at the sheep versus preaching among the sheep. I have never seen anyone put the distinction into words because it seems so hard to do, but every Christian intuitively knows the difference.

When a preacher is preaching at the sheep, there is a sense of distance between shepherd and sheep. This may result from tone, content, or movement, but the overall sense from the congregation and their leader is one of separation. Preaching at the sheep can still be true and clear (and be mightily multiplied by the Spirit), it just appears to fall short of the heart-searching ideal. Size makes no difference here; you can preach at 500 sheep and preach at 5 sheep.

When a preacher is preaching among the sheep, there is a sense of nearness between shepherd and sheep. The congregation senses the pastor is preaching to them because he is with them. Such a sense also can result from tone, content, or movement, but I believe there is a deeper reality behind this kind of preaching.It’s the reality of pastoral love. This Pastoral love is why size makes no difference on this side of the equation either; mega-pastors and house church pastors regularly preach among the sheep.

Pastoral love fuels preaching among the sheep because the shepherd has a biblical and emotional interest in their growth. It may just be my experience, but the times where my preaching was (and at times still is) more “at than among” were times when I was eager to be known as a great preacher. Therefore, I stood on stage and spoke at people, anxious to grow my reputation more so than the hearts of my hearers. A loving pastor will have a particular concern in his preaching for the sheep entrusted to his care, a love that will display itself in how he preaches. His love for them means he wants the text to grow their hearts just as it has grown his heart during preparation. Thus, when it comes time to preach, he is only sharing his heart, as explained and applied through the text, with all the authority, clarity, and boldness he must.

This weekend countless pastors will ascend to the sacred desk and preach. May it be preaching among the sheep.

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Books for Elder Training

Pastoral Ministry

The pastoral epistles1 are best friends to a young pastor like myself. With only nine months of lead pastor ministry under my belt I find myself always turning to these friends for wisdom.

One particular area of focused study in recent months has been Paul’s instruction regarding the installation of elders. Everyone seems to know the qualifications Paul gives for elders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, but fewer know – or at least talk about – Paul’s wisdom about installing such qualified men. In Titus 1 Paul said to his young church planter, “This is why I left you in Crete, so that you might . . . appoint elders in every town as I directed you” (1:5). The first thing we see is Titus exhorted to urgency as Paul apparently doesn’t want Titus to be lazy in the appointment of elders. But Titus 1:5 needs to always be balanced by 1 Timothy 5:22, where Paul says, “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands.” So, be urgent and patient. From these two passages I get my conviction that churches should be patiently urgent in installing men for elder leadership.

At our church, this maxim has played out in us spending eight months observing which men are qualified and already doing the work of eldering. We identified those men and then put them in five-months of “elder candidate training.”2 The training involves, on average, three monthly meetings3 along with many books to read, lectures to listen to, and response papers to write. I am always fascinated with and challenged by the resources other churches use for elder training, so I thought it could be useful to provide a list of the books we are using at IDC.

Most of these books are read in their entirety, but from a few we are only reading selected chapters.

BIBLE & THEOLOGY

  • IDC Elder Confession of Faith4
  • The King in His Beauty by Tom Schreiner
  • God’s Big Picture by Vaughn Roberts (UR)5
  • Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves (UR)
  • What is Reformed Theology? by RC Sproul (UR)

ECCLESIOLOGY

  • What is the Mission of the Church? by Kevin DeYoung and Greg Gilbert
  • A Display of God’s Glory by Mark Dever
  • The Deliberate Church by Mark Dever and Paul Alexander
  • What is a Healthy Church? by Mark Dever (UR)

PASTORAL MINISTRY

  • The Shepherd Leader by Timothy Witmer
  • Faithful Preaching by Tony Merida        
  • Finding Faithful Elders and Deacons by Thabiti Anyabwile (UR)

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

  • The Practice of Godliness by Jerry Bridges
  • Humility by CJ Mahaney (UR)
  • The Gospel & Personal Evangelism by Mark Dever (UR)
  • Sex, Romance, & The Glory of God by CJ Mahaney (UR)
  • A Neglected Grace: Family Worship in the Christian Home by Jason Helopoulos (UR)
  • Mortification of Sin by John Owen (UR)
  • Rhythms of Grace by Mike Cosper (UR)
  • The Secret Key to Heaven by Thomas Brooks (UR)

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  1. 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus. ↩
  2. We are about to wrap up our second month. ↩
  3. The meetings normally run about three hours. ↩
  4. An adaptation of the 1689 Baptist Confession. ↩
  5. “UR” signifies a book read for The Upper Room, a monthly gathering for all the men in our church. It’s aim is to disciple men to lead in the home and the church. ↩
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Preaching Pastors as Worship Pastors

Preaching Pastors as Worship Pastors

Each week I have the joyful responsibility of deciding what songs our church will sing during gathered worship. Many curious church members have asked why I, the preaching pastor, make such decisions.

In their book, The Deliberate Church, Mark Dever and Paul Alexander offer the following perspective,

You, the pastor, must be theologically discerning in what you encourage and lead your congregation to sing. It also means you must show courage in not allowing yourself to be guided by the musical preferences of the culture or the congregation, or even the passion of a music director, but rather by the theological content of the songs and their edification potential. Edification – building people up – happens when people are encouraged to understand and apply the Gospel more biblically, not necessarily when they are led into an emotional experience or encouraged to identity temporary emotional expressiveness with worship.

Lyrics set to music have formative power because they are memorable. Use songs that fill our minds with God’s character, that form our worldview by God’s truth, and that teach us about the biblical meaning and personal implications of His Gospel. Just as with prayer, so here, everything that happens up front in corporate gatherings is a function of the teaching ministry of the church. As the main teaching pastor, it is therefore your responsibility to shepherd the congregation into the green pastures of God-centered, Gospel-centered songs, and away from the arid plains of theological vacuity, meditations on human experience, and emotional frenzy. The best of the hymns and the best of the more modern worship choruses are those that direct our focus away from ourselves and onto the character and Gospel of God. Practice discerning the difference, and be careful about what you’re teaching through the music you encourage people to sing. If at all possible, refuse to pawn this responsibility off to someone else. God will hold us accountable for this aspect of our teaching ministries as well – even if we do delegate it (Heb. 13:17).

– Mark Dever and Paul Alexander, The Deliberate Church: Building Your Ministry on the Gospel, 84-85.

Preaching pastors – and any installed elders – are charged with overseeing all aspects of the church’s teaching ministry. Songs teach the congregation (Eph. 5:19; Col. 3:16). Therefore, preaching pastors ought to ordinarily oversee the selection of songs for their congregation’s gathered worship.

Preaching pastors are worship pastors.

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A Forgotten Yet Faithful Minister

Saint Paul in PrisonScripture memory reveals unseen treasures in ways few other methods of study and meditation can.

Case in point: Epaphras. Two years ago I decided to memorize the book of Colossians and I found myself regularly amazed at truth I never really saw before. One such revelation was this man named Epaphras. He only shows up three times in all of Scripture and two of them are in Colossians:1

  1. “You learned [the grace of God in truth] from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf and has made known to us your love in the Spirit.” – Col. 1:7-8
  2. “Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ Jesus, greets you, always struggling on your behalf in his prayers, that you may stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God. For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis.” – Col. 4:12-13

If you try to summarize everything these four verses say about Epaphras the summary might go something like this, “Epaphras was a faithful minister of Christ who taught the gospel, prayed, and worked hard.” Oh, what a three-pronged challenge to faithful pastoring! Let me work out this summary sentence on faithful ministry a bit more.

“He was a faithful minister who taught the gospel.” Paul kicks of Colossians 1 by sharing his delight in the young church’s faith in Christ and love for one another, things fueled by their hope in heaven. He continues to say that their hope came from hearing “the word of truth, the gospel,” and this they heard from Epaphras. This forgotten saint reminds every pastor that his ministry is to be preoccupied with that which if of first importance, the gospel. The Colossians not only “heard” the gospel, but they “understood” it as well. A preacher doesn’t minister the gospel with the sole aim of being heard; no, he must long to be understood as well. Such understanding can only come from the Spirit’s work, thus the faithful minister must be distinguished as a Spirit-dependent man. Like the sower in Mark 4:1-9, the pastor offers the seed of the gospel to everyone who will listen – even those who won’t listen – and prays for the Spirit to give them understanding.

“He was a faithful minister who prayed.” He not only prayed, but prayed with peculiar devotion.  4:12 says Epaphras was “always struggling.” The Greek for “struggling” is ἀγωνιζόμενος, more literally translated as “agonizing.” Faithful ministry, according to Epaphras, includes agonizing prayer for the flock to “stand mature and fully assured in all the will of God.” The energy of Epaphrus’ praying is challenging, but so to is the content of his praying. Any pastor who makes small advancement in prayer knows how easy it is to let somewhat secondary concerns dominate his prayers for the flock. Epaphras was consumed with pleas for his people to stand mature in Christ and assured in God’s will. This even echoes what Paul said earlier in the book. In 1:28-29 Paul says he proclaims Christ in order to “present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.” He then proceeds in chapter 2 to place more detail on the nature of his struggle, or agony. He agonizes for the Colossians “that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

So preach the gospel with the aim of being understood, agonize in prayer for maturity and assurance in Christ, and thirdly . . .

“He was a faithful minister who worked hard.” Epaphras bears the apostolic testimony that he “worked hard” for Christians in Colosse, “Laodicea and in Hierapolis.” Pastoral ministry hides lazy men quite well. The average size of the average congregation in our country means most minister work away from accountable eyes. As a church planter leading a small church I know just how easy it is to waste away the hours of each day and have few people know I’ve done so. But God will not suffer lazy shepherds, they are of all men to be diligent in faithful enterprise. Notice that Epaphras was not only commended for hard work in Colosse, but hard work in Laodicea and Hierapolis. These three cities made up the ancient Lycos Valley in modern day Turkey. Laodicea was 10 miles northwest of Colosse, and Hierapolis is thought to be about 13 miles northeast of Laodicea. So Epaphras was faithful to not only make the gospel known in Colosse, but also in the main cities nearby. The hard work of ministry should include working for gospel advancement in the surrounding areas of our immediate city or town. May God give us hearts for those near and far, and the energy to work hard for His glory everywhere we can.

“Epaphras was a faithful minister of Christ who taught the gospel, prayed, and worked hard.” He is a forgotten minster worth remembering.

  1. The other time is in Philippians 1:23 where we find he was with Paul in prison. ↩
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Soundtracks for the Battle

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For as long as I can remember military history has occupied a chief place of interest in my life. Whenever I came home from school and my parents asked how my day was I invariably responded, “Boring.” It was only during times when my social studies class studied a famous war that the response changed to, “My day was awesome!”

I majored in history for my undergraduate degree and still spend a fair portion of my week reading books about military history. When I heard my three little boys off to bath time each night I do so by commanding, “Get off the beach! Move, move, move!”

It is probably not surprising then to find out that I like to think of preaching as being, primarily, an act of warfare. When a preacher stands behind the sacred desk to deliver God’s Sacred Word he enters into the greatest battle the universe has ever seen. Through gospel courage and clarity he assaults the kingdom of darkness and the gates of hell. His weapon is the sword of the Spirit and with it he aims to slay sin and liberate its captives.

Therefore, I believe that war soundtracks – from major movies or mini-series – are the most appropriate background music for sermon preparation. John Murphy, a friend and church planter, tweeted last week:

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So in honor of “Murph” – a preacher and former solider – here are the soundtracks I listen to most often, in no particular order. Some of them prove a lousy movie can have a fantastic musical score. Maybe they can fuel your preparation for the coming weekend’s battle.

Are there any specific styles of music that help you during sermon preparation?

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Testing Your Sermons

411yqoulxhl-_sl500_aa300_1On Wednesday I mentioned R.L. Dabney’s seven “cardinal requisites for the sermon”: textual fidelity, unity, evangelical tone, instructiveness, movement, pointedness, and order.

Lo and behold, the next day I decided to reread T. David Gordon’s Why Johnny Can’t Preach and found the first chapter is largely occupied with comments on the seven requisites. Gordon is especially useful in providing the following test questions for each of Dabney’s requirements:

  1. Textual Fidelity. Does the significant point of the sermon arise out of the significant point of the text? Is the thrust of the sermon merely an aside in the text? Is the text merely a pretext for the minister’s own idea?
  2. Unity. If ten people are asked after the sermon what the sermon was about, will at least eight of them give the same (or a similar) answer?
  3. Evangelical Tone. Do the hearers get the impression that the minister is for them (eager to see them richly blessed by a gracious God), or against them (eager to put them in their place, scold them, reprimand them, or punish them)? Is it his desire to see them reconciled to and blessed by a pardoning God? Does the sermon press the hearer to consider the hopelessness of his condition apart from Christ, and the utter competence of Christ to rescue the penitent sinner?
  4. Intructiveness. Does the sermon significantly engage the mind, or is the sermon full of commonplace cliches, slogans, and general truths? Is the hearer genuinely likely to rethink his view of God, society, church, or self, or his reasons for holding his current views? Is the mind of the attentive listener engaged or repulsed?
  5. Movement. Do the earlier parts of the sermon contribute to the latter parts’ full effect? Does the sermon have intellectual (and consequently emotional) momentum?
  6. Pointedness. Is the effect of the sermon, on those who believe it, similar? If it encouraged one, did it tend to encourage all, and for the same reason? If it troubled one, did it trouble all, and for the same reason? If it made one thankful, did it ten to make all thankful, and for the same reason?
  7. Order. Could the hearers compare notes and reproduce the outline of the sermon? If they could not reproduce the outline, could they state how it progressed from one part to another?

Preachers around the world today will ascend to the sacred desk to offer sacred rhetoric from the Sacred Book. May they do so with faithfulness to all these “requisites.”

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Walking Up to Preach

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Every preacher knows his ascension to the sacred desk can be a fearful climb fraught with weighty excitement. It’s why Charles Spurgeon was said to mount the stairs to the Metropolitan’s pulpit by repeating, with each step taken, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” It’s why John Piper says he almost always runs through the acronym of APTAT (Admit, Pray, Trust, Act, Thank) just before the sacred moment of preaching.

In just over twelve hours (at the time of this posting) I will, Lord willing, step up to preach on Christ’s calling of the Twelve in Mark 3:7-19. If tonight is par for the course, I won’t be nervous nor anxious, the dominating sense will be one of awesomeness – a mixture of awe and terror. The awe comes from wonder and delight that God allows me to preach His word. The terror comes from, I think, a holy fear of the responsibility I have to preach God’s word. As James 3:1 says, preacher dare not trifle with God’s word lest He be judged all the more harshly.

So, in the brief moments before walking up to the pulpit and starting the sermon, I have come to recite the acronym of R-E-L-Y.

Recognize. I recognize that, in and of myself, I am insufficient and weak for the task at hand. My words will falter in places and mind wander in places. I will not say things as clearly as I ought nor preach as boldly as I ought. The recognition leads me to remember that God’s power is made perfect in my weakness, and that my preaching ought to be a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, not my own.

Exalt. The sermon is an arrow which must hit the one grand target for which it is intended: God’s glory in Jesus Christ. I remind myself the exaltation of a crucified Christ leads to exultation in the glorious God of the universe. To exalt God’s glory in Christ is the one thing I for which I must aim.

Lead. I must lead my congregation to truth. Like a father taking his child’s hand, I must take the hand of my church and lead them to the right understanding and application of the text. The Lord places His preachers in His pulpit in order to lead His sheep to His truth.

Yearn. The final word brings me, in some ways, back to the first point. If I am to faithfully exalt God’s glory in Christ and lead His people to His truth, I need Spirit’s power. Put in the older language, I must yearn for the Spirit’s unction. EM Bounds said, “This divine unction is the one distinguishing feature that separates true gospel preaching from all other methods of presenting truth. It backs and interpenetrates the revealed truth with all the force of God. It illumines the Word and broadens and enriches the intellect and empowers it to grasp and apprehend the Word. It qualifies the preacher’s heart, and brings it to that condition of tenderness, of purity, of force and light that are necessary to secure the highest results. This unction gives to the preacher liberty and enlargement of thought and soul—a freedom, fullness, and directness of utterance that can be secured by no other process.” That is what I yearn for in my preaching.

To sum it up . . .

Recognize my weakness.
Exalt God’s glory in Christ.
Lead them to truth.
Yearn for the Spirit’s unction.

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8 Helps for the Pastor’s Prayer Life

Praying PastorsCharles Bridges, in his classic work The Christian Ministry, wrote, “‘The spirit of our ministry is a spirit of prayer.’ Prayer is the ornament of the priesthood, the leading feature of our character. Without prayer, the minister is of no use to the church, nor of any advantage to mankind . . . It is prayer alone that gives the whole strength and efficacy to our different administrations . . . Prayer therefore is one half of our ministry; and it gives to the other half all its power and success.”1

The Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, seems to agree when he says, “The preacher is above all others distinguished as a man of prayer. He prays as an ordinary Christian, else he were a hypocrite. He prays more than ordinary Christians, else he were disqualified for the office which he has undertaken.”2

I doubt any pastor would disagree with these vaunted 19th century brothers, but I do suspect that reading the quotes above brings a convicting cringe. Let’s face it, praying pastors are hard to find. Where today is the pastor whom, like Luther, gives his three best hours to the work of prayer?

My personal journey of devotion to prayer has been a long, painful, and often disappointing one. In my early days of ministry prayer was virtually non-existent; Spurgeon would have surely given me a good dressing down. Yet, God was kind to poke and prod in all the right places. The initial pokes were more like strong stabs as God handed me a cup of ministerial suffering to cause – among other things – my knees to become more familiar with the floor. Yet, once the suffering passed the peculiar devotion to prayer passed as well. Prayer, in my life, has ordinarily been a fleeting and vaporous devotion. The next poke came with the arrival of our first son. Parenting is a gloriously burdensome responsibility, a load lightened by devotion in prayer. But once it was clear my boy would be healthy and would sleep through the night, the winds of life again blew away devotion to prayer. God’s third poke came from one old Puritan and one modern Puritan. In the span of one month I read Thomas Brooks’ The Privy Key to Heaven and watched Joel Beeke deliver a stirring address at the Desiring God Pastor’s Conference on the pastor’s prayer life. The Spirit used this two-pronged Puritan prod to strike the deepest blow to date; secret prayer became more habitual and joyful. The final notable work of God in this area happened just over nine months ago when we planted a church. Few things will cause familiarity with the closet as bearing the primary preaching and pastoral responsibility.

I am by no means a Luther, Bradford, or Spurgeon when it comes to prayer; I am little more than an impatient plodder in the prioritizing of prayer. But God continues to mold and shape the frame that only He can build. Over the years I have discovered eight particular helps for persistence in the “first half of ministry,” and I post them here in hope that God might use them to poke and prod you unto devotion in prayer.

  1. Study your Bible. It’s only in the Good Book that we find the goodness of our God and glory of His gospel. Consistently deep study of Scripture fuels an intimate knowledge of God that will naturally overflow into intimate communion with God. Deeper knowledge of God leads to deeper love of God, which in turn leads to deeper conversation with God.
  2. Set a time. Few things in life get done without the intentional setting aside of time. Extended time in prayer needs exactly that, time. The demands of pastoral ministry are legion and will easily cut out prayer if a particular time is not protected. It seems best to carve out a few different periods for prayer throughout the day rather than lumping them all into one. Matthew Henry was on to something when he talked about beginning, spending, and ending your day with prayer. Personally, I find the middle afternoon hours are best for extended prayer, so that’s where I carve out a good chunk of time. For you it could be early in the morning or late at night.
  3. Find your “closet.” Prayer has to be the most easily distracted spiritual discipline. Thus, it’s probably imperative that you find your “closet,” a place free of audible and visual distractions. This could be a spot in your house, a room in your church building, or a place out in the community. I happen to enjoy our master bedroom closet, but you might like a bench at tranquil park.
  4. Have a plan. Aimless prayer is the seedbed for distracted prayer. Keep up a running prayer list that’s easily accessible via a journal, computer, tablet, or phone. Break the list up into categories that you find helpful; my list includes headings like, “Personal,” “Family,” “Church,” “Ministry,” “Missions,” etc.
  5. Work less. Henry Martyn, in evaluating his first year of ministry, said he had dedicated “too much time to public ministrations, and too little to private communion with God.” Prayer is indeed pastoral work, but rarely do we think of it that way. Sometimes the only way to devote time to this work is to cut some of the other work.
  6. Pray with others. The work of gospel ministry is always helped when done in concert with others. The work of prayer is no different. Few things encourage longevity in prayer as does regular prayer with others. This can be your family, a few co-laborers in ministry, a couple church members, or all of the above.
  7. Read a good book on prayer. Because I am so prone to focus on everything but prayer, I find that having my reading list occupied with a book on prayer helps prioritize the work of prayer. Here are some books that have helped me.
  8. Read a good book of prayers. Our prayers inevitably become stale and rote, thus a good book of prayers can be your best friend in cutting through the monotony. Psalms is a great place to start, for as you pray through a Psalm you will find the Spirit bringing a myriad of other concerns to mind through the inspired text. You might also try The Valley of Vision, Lifting Up Our Hearts, The Pastor in Prayer, or Henry’s Method for Prayer.

Any other helps you would offer?

  1. Bridges, The Christian Ministry, 147-148. ↩
  2. Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, 42. ↩