1988 by Russell Metcalfe
Christian pastors have a unique calling. They cannot find a true model for their task in any other discipline. But a pattern for renewal is emerging.
Pastors have been quick to listen and learn from other disciplines. Perhaps at times they have been overly impressed with big business. Some of them have absolutely fawned on the pronouncements of psychology. And some Christian ministers have become near-experts in something very much like 'show biz.'
Pastors have searched for excellence, and have mastered management by objectives. But increasingly they have discovered that their work is too big to be run like a business, and far too important to model after show business. Pastors are challenged regularly to address deeper needs, and offer greater healing than psychology can be expected to understand. They deal daily with eternal issues having values far above that which financial wizards can compute. Secular paradigms are inadequate.
And so pastors are turning to prayer. And they are re- discovering the very heart of the life of the church. They are finding that in prayer itself are revealed the models and programs and successes that they have been so eagerly looking for elsewhere.
Prayer is not new to the church. Pastors have always believed sincerely in prayer. But God is calling to a quality of prayer that goes beyond seeking His blessing on the church's best efforts. God has blessed the church's best, and it has not been enough. God is summoning the ministry to prayer as a way of life, to prayer itself as essential to the life of the church.
There is a great and healthy hunger throughout the church for this resurgent prayer emphasis. Across denominational lines, in churches large and small, in the cities and in rural places, God's people are sensing the wind of the Spirit. Lay people are looking to their pastors to lead them in prayer.
Church happenings are team efforts. But the single most significant human factor in church renewal is the personal prayer life of the pastor. The pastor who is growing in a personal walk with God is equipped to stimulate growth in the congregation. There is an inescapable fusing of the pastor's prayer life and the life of the church at prayer.
More than two years ago Rev. Marian (Skip) Barber, pastor of the Church of the Nazarene in Columbiana, Ohio, was facing some challenges in the life and spirit of his church. And perhaps more importantly Rev. Barber felt personally challenged in his own prayer life. Several church leaders had moved away almost simultaneously; devotions that seemed "mechanical" even though faithfully maintained failed to rout temptations to feel sorry for himself.
So in October 1985 Rev. Barber began a personal 5:30 a.m. prayer time just to seek to draw closer to God. This he continued with increasing satisfaction and joy. In February, 1986, five months later, Rev. Barber made a low-key public challenge for his congregation to join him in this 5:30 prayer meeting. Several members responded, and almost without interruption the daily morning prayer time has continued to the present.
There have been other contributing factors to the Columbiana story. But something wonderful is taking place there. There has been growth in every measurable dimension. But the number one benefit, according to Rev. Barber is, "I have a relaxed sense of being involved in prayer with my people, of not having to prove anything to anyone!"
Before-after sketches can be manipulated, but "before" the Columbiana church was a strong church that had fallen on hard times economically, had lost leadership, had harbored temptation to bitterness. "After" there is, in Rev. Barber's words, "an attractiveness to the church..." No organized visitation, as such, is going on, but people from widely varied backgrounds are coming to find God meeting their needs. Attendance at services has increased 50%, and is still growing. Rev. Barber says, "It is like I imagine it was in the early days of our denomination."
The pastor's personal prayer life is not the only important way that the pastor has impact on the prayer life of the church. The most obvious and visible way that pastors lead their people in prayer is in the public services. Every Sunday morning, and many other times, the pastor is expected to express to God the united praise and petitions of the congregation.
Theologically this means a conscious emphasis on the priestly function of the ministry, complementing the prophetic. The pastor is called not only to speak to the congregation for God, but to speak to God for the congregation.
But theology aside, the practical pastor recognizes that the pastoral prayer, Sunday by Sunday, month by month, year by year, is a powerful teaching influence. It had best be a conscious influence, reinforcing good patterns, lifting up highest values. But most important of all, if the pastoral prayer regularly brings the people of God into the Presence of God, they are never satisfied to go back to 'saying prayers' in their private devotions.
It is inevitable that the pastor's personal prayer life will find direct expression in the prayers that are prayed in the public services. Praise and adoration, submission and inter cession, aspirations and vision, all the love a pastor knows for a congregation are part of an on-going pattern of public prayer. Many pastors reluctantly come to the conclusion that in the lives of many of the congregation, the pastoral prayer means more than the sermon.
Public prayer will reflect the importance and value which the pastor places on it. It must have a place alongside the sermon in the pastor's priorities as a time of openness before God. The pattern of public prayer should generally reflect the pattern of the 'Lord's prayer': God first, in worship, praise, submission to God's kingdom and will, and then petitions second. Public and private prayers should be congruent, with proportionately as much emphasis on praise as petition, and not simply litanies of needs to be met.
And there is a place for grace in the pastoral prayers. People need forgiveness and cleansing from guilt they may bring with them to church for whatever reason. The pastoral prayer can lead sinners to repentance, and Christians to appropriate God's cleansing from feelings of guilt they "should not" feel. There is a place for assurance of forgiveness in every prayer if we use the Pattern Jesus taught.
The pastor has occasion to influence the quality of spirit ual life in the church through sermons about prayer. When what a pastor says about prayer is consistent with growth in the pastor's personal praying, and when the example of public prayers resonate and amplify scriptural preaching, powerful forces are released.
Springing from the pastor's prayer life, and flowing through his public prayer utterances, what he says about prayer can often be used by the Holy Spirit to move a church toward God and revival.
An outstanding example of renewal that had its apparent start with preaching ministry has been taking place in the Lenoir, North Carolina, Community Church, where Rev. Robert Parmley is the only pastor to 400 members.
The 'Lenoir renewal' began this way: Rev. Parmley prepared what he thought would be a three-Sunday series on "The Lord's Prayer." The principles he expounded in that series seemed to be received in a fresh and practical way by many in the congregation. What developed was not so much a 'technique' as a practical application of what before may have been obvious but un- emphasized.
The emphasis or focus in this renewal has been in the phrases from the 'Lord's Prayer:' "Hallowed be Thy Name!" and "Thy kingdom come!" Rev. Parmley and the Lenoir congregation have deliberately sought to make the first priority of prayer and life to be honoring the names of God. Literally, they have used the many scriptural names of God in worship, public and private. And they have emphasized the imperative: LET Your kingdom come! LET your will be done! They use the phrase: "Nobody but Jesus is going to have ... literally intend that Jesus shall be Lord of their lives, their families, their church, and their community.
The result has been quietly spectacular. In 1986 the Lenoir Community Church received eleven new members and baptized seven. During the first six months of 1987, roughly the time their 'renewal' has been happening, they have had forty-seven new people start attending, and have received twenty-eight into membership.
Just recently the town 'white witch' came to their services and was converted on her first visit. A number of physical healings have taken place, and even in the death of several cancer patients there has been a victorious note of glory to God for their 'ultimate healing.'
Rev. Parmley emphasized that he, personally, is not engineering growth with his organizational abilities. Lenoir has no bus ministry, no organized visitation, and he is the only ordained pastor to over 400 members. Yet people are desirous of joining with the Lenoir church. Rev. Parmley spoke of "...an attractiveness to the services." And he described it as being "as though everything they undertake is blessed."
SUMMARY
Pastors and evangelists are re-discovering in prayer the very essence of the church. Paradigms that have fascinated, and in many cases that have been helpful are being laid aside or severely modified under the control of God through prayer.
We are learning to pray for more than blessing on our labors, or for bread and forgiveness and guidance and deliverance. We haven't stopped working, and we depend on God's providence, but we are learning to pray to know God. And that is the what the church and ministry are all about.