I was recently asked by a college student to comment on my thoughts about a discussion she was having in class, the question was. What should be more important in a pastors work; prayer/study or administration/ministry.
I figured this would be a great topic to blog about and share my thoughts, not with just this student but also others who may find this discussion interesting. I found it very intriguing that this was just asked of me, considering I have been spending several months really focusing in on my prayer life and at the same time developing my relatively new ministry at my church. So this discussion really peeked my interest. So in a nutshell my quick answer is this. You cannot be successful in administration and ministry if you do not have a strong and solid prayer and study life. Let me break this down though. People have been given skills that cover the whole gambit. You can have a gift in leadership, administration, organization, prayer, preaching teaching etc. you can be extremely gifted in these areas and be wonderful in what you do, but the success of using that gift for the intended purpose that the Lord has given it to you, is all dependent upon your hearts focus and passion. You could be a great teacher and not glorify God in anything you teach. But to be a teacher who glorifies God more abundantly in your teaching you must be in tune with the Lord. I am going to quote a few excerpts from a book that has recently changed my prayer life as a pastor. It’s called power Through Prayer by E.M. Bounds. He challenges and I would echo that a Pastors ministry is dependent upon his focus on the Lord and that the focus on the Lord is zeroed in upon when we pray, and this is in all areas of ministry from preaching to visiting the sick and elderly.
“It takes 20 years to make a sermon because it takes 20 years to make a man. The true sermon is a thing of life. The sermon grows because the man grows.” “Dead men give out dead sermons and dead sermons kill” “the preachers sharpest and strongest preaching should be to himself. His most difficult, delicate, laborious, and thorough work must be with himself.” Bounds take a lot of time to really nail down the fact that a minister cannot be a successful and God glorifying ministry if he does not take the time to pray, read, grow, challenge etc. himself before he does it to anyone else. He even goes a step further and says that a minister who does the acts of ministry without being in tune with the Lord doesn’t just bring about stagnant ponds but himself is the cause for death brought into churches. “Preaching that kills is prayerless preaching, without prayer, the preacher creates death and not life. The preacher who is feeble in prayer is feeble in life-giving forces.”
He makes another point that I find very true, I do not mean to simply vomit back something I read but this book in all seriousness is paramount to any other I have read on this subject, this book right now next to the bible has been the most stirring in my life. So to answer the other side of the question “what about the ministry part, isn’t that important as well you can’t spend your life in study and prayer alone? True!!! “Too often Christian Leaders who shut themselves in their studies become students, bookworms, bible workers, sermon makers, noted in literature, thought and sermons; but the people and God, Where are they?” the point is this, you can’t just focus on prayer and study and say the ministry will follow. The ministry starts with and is centered in on the pastor’s life being one that is rooted in prayer and study in all that he does, and when that is there the heart and life will fall in line with the heart of God, and the heart of God is all about saving souls, the greatest expression of love. I will leave you with 2 quotes from Bounds that summarize some great thoughts. “No learning can make up for the failure to pray. No earnestness no diligence, no study, no gifts will supply lack.” “Talking to men for God is a great thing(preaching/ministry), but talking to God for men(praying for others) is greater still. He who has not learned well how to talk to God for men will never talk well and with real success to men for God. More than this, prayerless words in the pulpit and out of it are deadening words.”
