Prayer Guide for Ministry Part 2

Last week we began praying for our ministries by praying for ourselves so that we can become better channels of God's grace and receive God's vision for ministry.

This week we look outward. We will be praying for other leaders and volunteers with whom we do the ministry. When Jesus sent the disciples on their first preaching tour he sent them in pairs (Mark 6:7). God always provides at least one other person to be our partner in ministry to encourage us and correct us. We have a spiritual bond with our ministry partners through the Holy Spirit who is animating each of us to serve. Prayer enables us to become sensitive to that spiritual bond and through it receive strength and guidance.

If you are engaged in an existing ministry make a list of the volunteers and staff with whom you work. Then make a list of the persons who are not involved in your ministry but need to be invited to join in the work. Next, envision the kinds of persons who need to help in the ministry. You do not know who they are now but you can pray for God to show them to you. Once you have your lists begin praying the following prayer exercise:

Pray for the Other Leaders and Workers

Read Ephesians 3:14-19 and insert the person’s name wherever it says ‘you’ or ‘your’:


"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that ___________may be strengthened in __________inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in __________heart(s )through faith, as ________ is/are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that _____________ may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that __________may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Prayer Guide for Ministry Part 1

Advent in the season of preparation for the celebration of the birth of Christ. Call it spiritual 'nesting.' It is a time to open your heart and mind and hands to receive the presence of Christ being born in you. Certainly that is something all church leaders, lay and clergy alike, need.

I have been leading our staff through a series of prayer exercises for their ministries. Over the next four weeks I will post them. This week we begin by praying for ourselves as church leaders. It is tempting to rush headlong into prayer with your list of what you want God to do with your ministry. However, prayer is not a wish list or a to-do list for Jesus. Prayer begins by opening ourselves to receive God's presence. The only way we can lead is by first being led by Christ.

Prayer Exercise #1: Pray for Yourself

For Virtue: Use the ‘Breath Prayer’ technique to express your needs to God:
(step one) think of the most immediate need or feeling you have;
(step two) think of a name for God.
(step three) Put the name with the need to form a breath prayer.
Example: I am tired—Almighty God—Prayer: “Almighty God, give me rest.” As you inhale say to yourself the title and as you exhale say the need.


For Vision:
(step one) recite Habakkuk 2:2-3, “Then the Lord answered me and said: ‘Write the vision; make it plain on tablets so a runner may read it. For there is still a vision for the appointed time.’”
(step two) ask yourself: Where do we want to be with this ministry one year from now?
(step three) conclude your meditation by reciting again Hab. 2:2-3

Whack It With a Stick

“Share in the suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus.”—II Timothy 2:3

This is why there is a privacy fence behind the parsonage:

At 2 a.m. on Friday morning our two beagles, Rufus and Chloe, started howling and chasing a opossum in our backyard. The opossum was perched on the neighbor’s chain link fence and the dogs were barking mindlessly when I ran out to quiet them. Like all opossums, this one was too stupid to jump down on the other side and wander off to safety. So I poked it with a rake hoping to knock it off into my neighbor’s yard. Instead, the opossum flipped over and ended up clinging to the fence on our side of the yard.

Immediately, Rufus grabbed him and ran off with a live opossum in his mouth. At two in the morning in my bare feet and boxer shorts, I was whacking the dog with a stick in order to save the opossum’s life—and our neighbors’ peaceful sleep. The opossum played opossum, the dogs ran in the house, and I retreated to the garage with my rake.

If I had not poked him they would have been barking all night. If I had not whacked him there would have been a bloody opossum carcass all over the backyard, and they would have barked all night.


As with beagles and opossums, sometimes in the church you just have to whack it with a stick.

There are problems every church faces that no one wants to deal with. Too often church leaders turn a deaf ear and look the other way in the hopes that someone else will deal with it. Who else is going to confront the problem except you? Whether you are the lay leader or a committee chairperson, you have been called by God to deal honestly and swiftly with problems in your church. It is not just the pastor’s responsibility. If you ignore them they will only persist and usually get worse. Part of being a leader means getting the dogs to stop barking in the pews and the parlors.


And sometimes that requires you to whack it with a stick. Don’t ignore problem. Yes, it is unpleasant and uncomfortable, but being a part of a church requires doing some unpleasant stuff. So, don’t let those problems linger because, in the end, you will have a bloody carcass strewn all over your congregation.

Cowbells and Koinonia

‘Bear one another’s burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.’—Galatians 6:2


The Cowbell Theologians left Speedway last week. Who are the Cowbell Theologians? They are seven pastors who get together a couple of times a year to read, write, talk and laugh about theology and ministry. Thee are four Lutherans, one Episcopalian, one Mennonite and a Methodist (me) scattered from San Diego to Goshen, Atlanta to Green Bay.

We were thrown together five years ago by the Center of Theological Inquiry at Princeton, a hoity-toity religious think tank that use to sponsor a ‘Pastor-Theologian Program.’ They, rightly, figured that pastors need to think deep thoughts and so with some drug money from the Lilly Endowment (‘the church’s one foundation’) they organized 70 pastors from across the nation into small groups and assigned a theologian to each group. Think of it as a cub scout troop for nerdy middle aged pastors.

Two years ago the Pastor Theologian Program ended but our group wanted to keep meeting so we applied for another Lilly-funded program through Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary’s College of Pastoral Leaders. Austin support a motley bunch of ‘cohort groups’ of pastors that are organized around a variety of themes ranging from a group of women pastors in Michigan who are studying a Medieval femail mystic to a bunch of pastors who do woodworking as a hobby. Being neither female nor handy with power tools, my group had not unique theme. We just wanted to get together and talk about theology and our churches.

Inspiration comes in a variety of forms and ours appeared in a Saturday Night Live sketch starring Will Farrell, a cowbell and an old Blue Oyster Cult song. We wrote a mock theological treatise about the ‘sanctus campana bovis’—‘holy cowbell’—and sent it in as our application.

Either the good people at Austin are stupid or have a weird sense of humor, but they accepted our application and from henceforth we became known as the ‘Cowbell Theologians.’

Over the past five years the Cowbells have become a source of support for my ministry. They have challenged me to think, to pray, and to rest. They have affirmed me and prayed for me. Their fellowship has made me see the potential and goodness in my church and have given me the support I have needed to make this a long-term appointment. I hope I have done as much for them as they have for me.

Fellowship is essential for church leadership. We never serve on our own. We need others to reflect with and laugh with. We need others to challenge us and affirm us. God uses them as a means of grace so that we can continue to be a means of grace to the people we serve.