Prayerless pews and powerless pulpits

Finally, dear brothers and sisters, we ask you to pray for us. Pray that the Lord’s message will spread rapidly and be honored wherever it goes, just as when it came to you. (2 Thessalonians 3:1 NLT) Are we praying for our Pastor as we should be? Prayerless pews will bring to pass powerless pulpits.

I once taught a large Sunday school class in a church. An African-American lady often approached me after class and told me how much she was getting from the teaching. She sometimes seemed so excited that she was ready to jump up and down. Then, others in the class looked like they could not wait for the class to be over. Pondering this, I asked the Lord why this lady was so excited about my teaching, and others seemed bored to tears. Aren’t they hearing the same thing, Lord? One Sunday, I got the answer. The lady approached me, expressing her gratitude for the lesson that day, and added, “I never miss praying for you before I come to Church. I told myself, that’s it; if you want something from a lesson, put something into it. And the most important something is always prayer.

Charles Spurgeon, the patron saint of all Baptist preachers, was one showing a group of young pastors around his massive Church. He told them he wanted to show them his “Boiler Room.” He took them down to the basement, where a hundred people were praying. Whenever he was asked the reason for the success of his ministry, he would always answer, “My people pray for me.”

The Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs once said, “It is common for Christians who are going into surgery to pray for the wisdom and skill of their doctors. How common is it that Christians would pray the same for the men who treat their souls?” Just as we pray for a skillful hand with a surgeon’s scalpel, we should petition God that our Minister “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15 NASB). If you lack power in your Church’s pulpit and have not been praying for your Pastor, you have only gotten what you deserve. Prayerful pews bring powerful pulpits.

I worked for seventeen years as a missionary with Youth With A Mission. My missionary work has taken me to Mexico, Canada, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Spain, and Ukraine. I hold a Masters of Education in curriculum and instruction from Virginia Commonwealth University . kenbarnes737@gmail.com