Do You Pray for Your Pastor?

If you do (and you should), what do you pray for? Do you pray that he will be your personal chaplain or do you see him as your shepherd? A chaplain is duty bound to serve the rotating needs of a specific class of people.

Shepherding runs in the opposite direction from a chaplain. It takes all the unique needs of various people at various stages of life and leads them to one ultimate solution… Jesus Christ.

This post begins a series of posts about how to pray for your pastor.

The absolute most important prayer for your pastor is that his sermons are redundant.

What? Pray that his sermons are redundant? Why?

Still stinging from his fiasco at Athens, where he tried to match philosophical wits with the Athenian philosophers, Paul wrote that he “…resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (I Corinthians 2:2)

He had made the mistake of preaching something other than the gospel. But the gospel is absolutely the ONLY message we have. If you get tired of that message, you need to check your relationship to God through Christ.

So, pray that you pastor will be able to proclaim one overarching message from every text he preaches. Whatever principle or wisdom is put forward, pray that every message you hear from this pulpit is the wrapped around the same redundant theme: the glory of the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Pray that his sermons hold high the sacred jewel of redemption so that you may marvel at it. With every turn and refraction of light there is a new glory revealed but it always the same jewel.

Pray he is a record scratched exactly at the sacrifice of Christ. Pray that he never gets over, gets past, gets to the bottom of or never gets tired of the glorious news of the accomplishment of God in Christ.

Pray that he hears you singing the refrain, “Tell me the story of Jesus. Write on my heart every word. Tell me the story most precious; sweetest that ever was heard.”

Pray your preacher aids you in the constant re-discovery of the absolute, unending spectrum of glorious truth that is within the Word of God and its singular message spanning from Genesis to Revelation.

This is not a story about what man does for God. This is not a message about how man gets to God. This is not a story about how man sought God. This is a story about how God got to man, how God satisfied His own requirements on man’s behalf and for his own glory.

Pray this message never ceases to amaze this man who is your pastor.

(Thanks and a hat tip to Church Pastor for the inspiration for and much of the content of this post).

Where Would He Lead?

Suppose you were a church that had been led to grow to 3 or 4 times your original size. Suppose you were then led to purchase a new building to accommodate that growth. Suppose then you were led into financial difficulties and had to split up. Who would you call to lead you back to where you once were and into the future?

Click here to see some of the pastoral qualifications a pastor should fulfill.

Here are some ministerial questions a prospective pastor should be asked.

1.  If you are called to be our pastor, what steps would you take to establish a meaningful Bible study ministry for all age groups?

2.  If you are called to be our pastor, what steps would you take to establish a meaningful ministry to train all age groups in sound doctrine and to train leaders to lead in such a way as to make their leadership a proper offering to Christ?

3.  If you are called to be our pastor, what steps would you take to establish a meaningful missions ministry that taught the importance of missions and activities for missions to all age groups?

4. If you are called to be our pastor, how would ;you prepare your messages in such a way that the central theme of each one is the gospel of Christ?

5. If you are called to be our pastor, in what way would you lead to make certain that all worship services are geared toward worship and praise as pure and acceptable offerings to a holy an sovereign God?

6. If you are called to be our pastor, in what way would you lead to assist the church to establish and maintain sound Biblical fiscal responsibility?

7.  If you are called to be our pastor, what would be your God given vision as to where we will be five years from now?

8.  If you are called to be our pastor, how would you go about insuring that all leadership is steeped in sound Biblical, New Covenant doctrine?

9.  If you are called to be our pastor, what steps would you take to ensure that all members are afforded a realistic opportunity to know everything there is to know about every aspect of the life of our church?

10.  If you are called to be our pastor, what objective, goals and actions would you lead us toward in the next year?

Those are nine questions that every prospective pastor should be ready to answer. They speak to his ability to lead into the future in a positive, Spirit-filled way. They speak to his administrative skills.

Come to think of it, they are questions every pastor, new or established, should be ready to answer.