I'm Back....and ready to get praying !

As I was blogging on the one of the intercessory types, I read an interesting comment:

"When a pastor falls, part of the blame is shared with the congregation because we are the prayer shields for our leaders." from the book " Intercessors" by T. Femrite, E.Alves, K.Kaufman

Wow! Did someone actually have the guts to say that out loud? To print it in a book?! Awesome!
The reality is, they're right! We are called to pray for those in authority. The problem is, so many of us think that someone else is doing it, so we don't have to! But what if no one is praying !?! What if everyone thinks the other guy is praying for the pastor and his family, and in reality, no one is? What then? Think about it!

Are we surprised at the burn out rates for pastors? What about the divorce rates among the clergy? They are on the rise. What can we do about it? PRAY!

Yup...it's that easy - pray! Not leave it up to anyone else to pray for the pastor or leader in our life...but we take up the call...we take up the responsibility and we pray!

What would happen if every family in a church just remembered to pray for the pastor and his family, over their evening meal? Just even that would probably be a huge improvement! Think of it - depending on the size of your church, that pastor is going to get a lot of prayer everyday! And if people did before every meal...wow! The results would be amazing!

I'd love to do an experiment. I'd love to take three leaders from the same church ( or it could be different churches), and have one of them assigned families who would commit to pray for them before each evening meal. Then, have the other leader have families who commit to praying for them before EACH meal . The third leader...would have people doing what they already do for him/her - whether that is never remembering to pray for them..or praying when they remember. Then I'd like to do that for 2 weeks and see what the difference would be in the lives of those leaders and their families. What do you think? Think there would be a difference? I do!

Prayer is the greatest gift you can give to a church, especially to your pastor!

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