They Need Your Prayers

Dannah Gresh: Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth with a thought-provoking question.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: The apostle Paul, who founded so many of the early New Testament churches—he needed prayer. If he needed prayer, do you think your pastor can pastor successfully without your prayers?

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Let's Go to Church!, for Thursday, October 6, 2022. I'm Dannah Gresh.

When was the last time you prayed for your pastor? Today we’ll find out why it’s such an important thing to do. We'll also hear from a churchmemeber who tookpraying for his pastor to a whole new level. Here’s Nancy, continuing in a series called "Follow the Leaders."

Nancy: I want to talk today about what I think may be the most important way that you can minister encouragement and grace and appreciation to your pastor. We're focusing on how we can honor those who lead us spiritually, how we can be a blessing to them, how we can lift up their hands and support them and encourage them.

We ought to be their cheerleaders. Their jobs are hard. To lead the flock of God today is a huge challenge. They have to deal with people of all levels of maturity, immaturity, and even lost people. That's a tough job. One of the great joys of my life is being a cheerleader for men of God who are pastors and spiritual leaders, lifting up their hands, and challenging the women who listen to Revive Our Hearts to say, “How can we be an encouragement to these men of God who lead the flock spiritually?”

We’ve been talking about different ways that we can do that, but I don’t think there’s any way that’s any more important than what we’re talking about today. There are four words in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 25 that summarize this principle. The apostle Paul said to the Thessalonians: “Brothers, pray for us.” Pray for us.

The apostle Paul, the one who had had visions of the throne room of God that were unspeakable, the one who’s given by God the responsibility and the inspiration for writing a major portion of our New Testament . . . the apostle Paul, who founded so many of the New Testament churches—he needed prayer. If he needed prayer, do you think your pastor can pastor successfully without your prayers?

Paul said, “Brothers, pray for us.” You read this numerous times throughout the New Testament, in the epistles particularly. Hebrews chapter 13, verse 18—we don’t know who the author is, but he says, “Pray for us, for we are confident that we have a good conscience in all things desiring to live honorably” (NKJV).

Our pastors, our spiritual leaders, and their families need our prayers. They are human; they are weak; they are fallible; they are targets of the enemy. They experience some temptations that we don’t even relate to. They have feet of clay. They have weaknesses. They have blind spots. They’re human beings, and they need our prayers.

Now, in preparation for this series we did a little survey on our website of some of our listeners. We asked them questions about how they encourage and respond to their pastors and spiritual leaders, and one of the questions was about prayer.

I was not really surprised, but I was saddened to see that 42% of those who responded said that they seldom pray specifically for their pastor.  45% say they seldom pray for their church leaders. I have to say that I was convicted as I read those statistics. God prompted my heart that I don't pray as I need to for my pastors and my spiritual leaders. Is it any wonder that we have some of the kinds of issues and problems that we do in our churches if we’re not praying people?

As you pray, first pray thanking God for the leaders He has put in your life. Thank God for these men. Thank God for their families. Thank God for these who have followed God’s calling, have made sacrifices in many cases to shepherd the flock of God.

Then pray faithfully for these men who are in positions of spiritual leadership over your life. Take initiative to find out how you can pray for your spiritual leaders. Ask them how you can pray for them. Ask your pastor’s wife, “How can I pray for you this week?” You might even do this on a regular basis. You might do this weekly.

You might say, "Pastor, there is a group of women that really want to pray for you and your family. Would you be willing to send an email once a week telling us what's on your heart that we could pray about. What are you preaching on next Sunday? Can we pray about that as you prepare this message?" Take initiative to find out how you can pray.

Not only pray for them, but pray with them.

I've had the great joy at times to pray with Christian leaders along with his wife. I'll say, "Can I take a moment to pray for you as a couple? I want to bless you. I want to pray for you." I pray for God's blessing, for God's encouragement, God's grace, God's wisdom. I pray with them. I pray over them so they know that my heart is to lift them up.

I know that is a huge encouragement to me—the people who pray for me, the people who lift me up to the Lord and tell me they’re praying and stop and say, “Can I pray with you?” That ministers such grace to my heart. It encourages me. It challenges me. It makes me realize that I'm not in this battle alone. Not only to I have God's grace, but I have other people who are are in this battle with me.   I need that. Your pastor needs that. Your church leaders need that. Spiritual leaders of your church need that.

Just suggest some ways that you can pray for your pastor. Don’t try to write all these down because I’m going to give them to you quickly. And you will have other things that come to your mind.

Actually, one thing you could do is just pray for them the way you want to be prayed for yourself. Whatever your needs are, whatever you’re going through, chances are those in spiritual leadership go through similar issues.

Are you having an issue in your marriage? You and your mate aren't communicating real well right now? Pray for your pastor's marriage. You say, "Well, they never have problems communicating." That's what you think. They do. They have times when the pastor is so busy that the wife feels like everybody in the church is getting his time but she's not getting it. Pray that they will have time together as a couple to communicate. Pray that conflicts will not become a wedge or a barrier between them, that they will be quick to deal with issues in their marriage. Just the same way that you need to be quick to deal with issues in your marriage.

Pray for your pastor’s personal walk with God. Pray for his devotional life, for his time alone with God.

I know that’s something I need you to pray for me. I'm studying all the time to bring these lessons, virtually. But it is easy to take shortcuts in my personal worship, prayer, and devotional reading of the Word. That's something you can pray for me. If I get to the place where I’m just teaching content from the Word of God but I’m not meeting with the Lord on a daily basis to hear from Him, to be in His presence, sooner or later you’ll be able to tell that because the anointing will be gone. The freshness will be gone. The heart will be gone. I'll have the content on this broadcast, but I won't have the passion and love for Christ. So pray for that for me, but pray it for your spiritual leaders.

Pray that they will love God with all their heart and soul and strength and might, that they’ll love God more than they love the ministry. That’s something again I need you to pray for me.

Pray for their personal character and integrity. Pray that they will be morally pure. Pray for protection from moral temptation. You say, “My pastor doesn’t get tempted to have immoral thoughts.” I guarantee you he does. I don’t care how godly he is, how old he is, how mature he is. I guarantee you that if he is a man, he has moral temptation. He’s tempted to lust; he’s tempted to think improperly about women. And I guarantee you that he’s put in situations where he could be unfaithful to his wife. Pray that God will guard his heart.

So many of these men who fall morally and have to get out of the ministry, I just wonder: Were people praying for them? Were people lifting them up? How did they fall? How did they get into pride? How did they get so overwhelmed with discouragement that they had to quit the ministry? Who was lifting up their hands? Who was praying for them?

And I wonder sometimes if we don’t bear responsibility for these men who fall and who get out of the ministry. I’m not saying they’re not accountable. They are. But I wonder if we’ve created a climate where we’re adequately lifting up their hands and taking them to the throne of grace? “Brethren, pray for us,” Paul said.

Pray for his marriage. Pray for his wife. Pray for his wife. It’s a hard thing to be in the ministry and see your husband pour himself out on behalf of the congregation and individuals, late nights, early mornings. And then to see him get stabbed in the back by some of the very people that he brought to Christ or discipled or poured his life into is a hard thing for that wife; to see her husband criticized. Her temptation is to take up an offense. Pray that she won’t pick up on offenses. God doesn’t give the wife grace to deal with the husband’s offenses. She needs grace to trust her husband to the Lord. Pray for his wife.

Pray for their children, children growing up in ministry homes. I’ve seen some of those children grow up and love the ministry, but I’ve seen some children grow up in ministry homes and never want anything to do with the ministry. What did they get exposed to? What did they see? What pressures did they see on their dad? What did they see in the inner workings of church life that made them want to go as far away as they could from ministry? Pray for those children and for the pastor and his wife as they shepherd their own children.

Pray for divine anointing on his ministry. Pray for unction, for the power of the Holy Spirit of God. Listen, he can study 100 hours a week, but it will be nothing; it will be chaff; it will be useless if the anointing and the power of the Holy Spirit isn’t on his ministry. You think your pastor’s preaching isn’t anointed? Are you praying for that?

Pray that he’ll have a shepherd’s heart, that he’ll love his people. Pray as he prepares messages. Pray for his schedule. Pray that he won’t give in to discouragement and pride. There are so many things that you can pray for your pastor. I hope that you’ll take advantage of getting this little piece that we’ve prepared for you with some other ways that you can pray for your pastor.

Gardiner Spring was a pastor, pastor to a church in New York City for sixty-three years in the 1800s. He wrote a message all those years ago that I think is profound and is profoundly needed in our generation. The message is called “A Plea to Pray for Pastors,” and here’s what he said in part:

Let the thought sink deep into the heart of every church, that their minister will be such a minister as their prayers make him. . . .

For who and what are the ministers themselves? Frail men, fallible, sinning men, exposed to every snare, to temptation in every form. And, from the post they occupy, they are an easier target for the fiery darts of the foe. . . .

How perilous is the condition of that minister then, whose heart is not encouraged, whose hands are not strengthened, and who is not upheld by the prayers of his people! . . .

It is at a fearful expense that ministers are ever allowed to enter the pulpit without being preceded, accompanied, and followed by the earnest prayers of the churches.

Let me say that if you go to church and expect to get something out of your pastor’s message on Sunday morning without having stopped before the service to pray for him, then don’t be surprised when you don’t get any huge blessing. Pray.

He says, “It’s no marvel that the pulpit is so powerless and ministers so often disheartened when there are so few to hold up their hands. When the churches cease to pray for ministers, ministers will no longer be a blessing to the churches.” Pray for the pastors. Pray for the spiritual leaders. Paul said it: “Brothers, pray for us.”

Dannah: Wow, what an encouraging reminder from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth! I don’t know about you, but I need to do a better job praying for the leaders in my church. Just a reminder that you can review the transcript of this program at ReviveOurHearts.com or through the Revive Our Hearts app. Also, many of the concepts Nancy has been sharing all this week are captured in a booklet she wrote called Let’s Go to Church! In fact, one of the sections in that booklet is a 30-Day Pray for Your Pastor challenge.

This month, in gratitude for your gift of any amount, we’ll send you Let’s Go to Church! by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth when you request it. To make a donation, just head to ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

To close this series, we’re going to go back in our archives to a conversation Nancy had with a pastor and two members of his church back in 2005. I think you’ll see in a moment how it ties into this concept of praying for our pastors. Pastor Bobby Moore went home to be with the Lord in 2010, but this is a sweet testimony of the power of prayer to affect not only the one being prayed for, but also for the ones doing the praying. Let’s listen to a portion of this Revive Our Hearts interview from 2005, and let’s ask God to grow in us a desire to pray for our pastors.

Nancy: Thank you so much for joining us on Revive Our Hearts today.

Bobby Moore: I’m grateful, Nancy, for your friendship and the relationship that we’ve had through the years. It’s an honor to be able to try and be of an encouragement to other pastors today. Thank you for asking us.

Nancy: And you have with you there a couple who are dear friends of yours and mine as well. Jerry and Susan Cherry are a couple in your church, and we want them to share a little bit of their story and how their hearts have become connected to yours. Jerry and Susan, welcome to Revive Our Hearts, and thank you for joining us today.

Susan Cherry: Thank you, Nancy, for having us today. We’re glad to be here.

Jerry Cherry: Thank you, Nancy.

Nancy: A number of years ago the Lord put it on your heart to become more than just a laymen sitting in the pew listening to your pastor preach. Tell us how God started to work in your heart and how the whole burden for a pastor’s prayer ministry developed.

Jerry: Well, Nancy, I got tired of just being a layman. I was a layman and a deacon, gave, loved my pastor all those years . . . up until nine years ago. I began to seek the Lord on how He could use me.

My wife Susan has a wonderful voice for the Lord, and she sings in his revivals. I began to seek the Lord, at fiftey years old, on how He could use me in my latter years. I wanted to be sure and “burn out, not rust out,” as the old saying goes. So I began to pray and fast and seek the Lord on how He could use me to build my church, to build His kingdom.

Through prayer and fasting for about twenty-seven days . . . It was the first time I had ever fasted. God led me into that. The pastor had asked a dear man to come and do a prayer ministry one weekend. Susan and I attended that. I noticed that every time he used Jesus' names, tears would flow from his eyes. I knew that he had something a little different than I had. So we took that couple home that night, along with Brother Bobby and Mrs. Joyce, and fed them.

After eating we went into the den, and they began to pray for us. This dear brother knelt over me and began to pray, and I could feel his hot tears fall on my back.

After they left, Susan and I were sitting in our bedroom. She asked me what was wrong. And Nancy, through the years I’ve had a quiet time on a faithful basis. I did that every morning, spending an hour with the Lord. And I looked at my wife and I said, “Honey, I don’t even know how to pray.”

So I said, by God’s grace I’m going to learn how. So through that weekend, as we took Bill and Mary Ann back to the airport, God spoke to my heart on the way home and called me to the prayer partner ministry. That night I announced to the church that I believe God was leading me to start a prayer group of men and pray for our pastor. The following week I called about seventy men that were in that prayer meeting, and fifty-six men said, “Brother Jerry, we’ll go with you.”

So we started a prayer partner ministry for our pastor. Every time he preaches in our church, on Sunday morning and Sunday night, there’s a group of ten to twelve men praying underneath the pulpit area where we put our prayer room.

For the first four or five years we dealt only with men, because I knew that men will back off and let the women do the things God’s called them to do. For the first five years, I believe it was, we dealt with men only, praying for our pastor and praying for the services.

Nancy: So did many of those men feel the way that you did, that they really didn’t know how to pray until that time?

Jerry: I had men tell me, “Brother Jerry, I’ve never prayed out loud.” So I mixed the young men with the older men so the older men could get the vigor from the young guys and the young guys could get the wisdom from the old men. After probably about four or five times they prayed back there, they began to learn to pray, and now they pray before the whole church over the offerings. 

Nancy, I’ve seen our church just break when those men spend an hour and a half with the Lord, and then come out and begin to pray. It’s not just the normal prayer, “Bless the gift and the giver.” They get a hold of God! They’ve been with God for an hour and a half, pleading for their pastor, pleading for the services, pleading for people by name that they know may be lost or cold or indifferent in the services. It’s literally changed our church these nine years that we’ve been doing this.

Nancy: Susan, what has it meant to you to have a husband who takes the leadership in praying in this way.

Susan: It means everything to me.

Nancy: Brother Bobby, did Jerry come and tell you at the beginning that he had this burden for prayer?

Bobby: Well, after we had the prayer conference, he shared with me what he wanted to do. I’d been trying to get a group of men to pray. As a matter of fact, I’d gone up to the church on Saturday nights and prayed by myself and invited the men of the church to come. Over a period of months very few men came.

So I got up and said that I've been coming up on Saturday nights to pray and I'm not going to do it any more. I'm going to stay home and pray. I got a little bit discouraged about that. I probably shouldn't have said it that way, but I did.

When God moved on Jerry’s heart, it just seemed to be the right timing. The fact that I’d been trying to get something done and I was not able to do it, and yet God raised him up . . . the Lord just really blessed through his submission and surrender to lead that ministry.

So he did share with me what he wanted to do and how he and Susan wanted to pray for me. They asked me to write out my needs, and I wrote out a whole bunch of things and gave it to them. They began to pray and still pray faithfully for all those needs plus a lot of others since then.

Nancy: So this was not just a matter of people praying during the services; this is a matter of a couple taking you on their heart and carrying you consistently in prayer.

Bobby: Well, of course, Jerry would never say anything about it, but he does this every day, every morning, not only for me but for all of our church staff, for their wives, for their children, their grandchildren.

Nancy: And not only your church staff, by the way. I know that he and Susan pray for the staff of our ministry and know the names of our staff children and grandchildren, some of them better than I do because they’re carrying that burden in prayer.

Bobby: You know, God’s given him and Susan this burden. I think He gave it to Jerry first, and then I think Susan got the burden from the influence and the power of a praying husband. So they both are vitally involved in the prayer ministry, not only of our church, but God has used them in places all over this land to go and encourage churches to pray for their pastors and pray for their church.

Oftentime I'll let him go preach to a church before I go to a church. When I get there, some of them will say that there is no need for you to be here. God has used him as a laymen. It is such an impressive thing for people in the congregation to see a layman who has such a heart for God and such a heart for prayer.

Nancy:    Brother Jerry, did that heart for prayer increase and develop, or was it just there all of a sudden?

Jerry: Well, I’d have to say, Nancy, that it’s increased through these years; but for some reason the Lord burdened my heart for my pastor more than just praying during the service and getting these men to do this. I began to realize immediately how our pastors need prayer.

You know, we put them on a pedestal. I don’t think a pastor puts himself on a pedestal, but they’re needy just like we are; and I began to realize that almost immediately. I went to my pastor I think two days after God put this on my heart and told him what I'd like for him to do. He gave me seventeen prayer requests that I could begin to pray for and over one hundred Scripture verses that went with these seventeen prayer requests. My wife typed them out, and we began to pray for Brother Bobby immediately.

Not only are these men are required to pray once a month during the service. But they are required to pray for their pastor daily—they and their wives. God so knit my heart to Brother Bobby’s heart, just like in 1 Samuel chapter 18 where Jonathan and David’s hearts were knit together.

I became a Jonathan to my pastor, for Jonathan took off his robe, laid down his sword and shield, laid down his spear. I went to my pastor and I laid down all that I have. He can have anything I have, whatever there is in worldly possessions.

When I go into churches, I try to teach the laymen the grave responsibility they have to pray for their pastor. Not only to pray for him, but to make sure that his needs are met financially, physically if they can. We not only pray for our pastor, we make sure his needs are taken care of. His car, there is a precious brother who washes his car. Another mows his yard. Others make sure his needs are met.

So the prayer ministry has brought a group of men together who see that their pastor is just like they are.

I've found that Satan gets more bang for the buck if he can destroy a pastor. If he can cause a pastor to fall, it causes a community several years to get over that. God forbid that a layman or a deacon or other men in the church fall. But for a pastor there is more damage done to the community.

I’ve taken on praying for Brother Bobby on a daily basis. People ask me, “Brother Jerry, how do you pray almost an hour a day for your pastor?” I have that list of seventeen requests. He has thirteen grandchildren, and that takes a while to go through; and then for his precious wife and other needs that he has. So falling in love with my pastor [is like] reading in Exodus where Moses’ arms needed to be lifted up and he needed a Hur. So Aaron and Hur lifted up his arms in the battle. Our pastors are weary.

I think Monday is probably the day that they’re more attacked, after a wonderful day with the Lord on Sunday preaching two messages; then they’re more vulnerable on Monday. So Monday is a time that our pastor comes to my office. I have a group of businessmen from our church and another one of our staff meet every Monday morning from 6:00-8:00 to pray for our pastor and our staff during that time.

Dannah: Well, I think that’s an inspiring example. We’ve been listening to a conversation that was recorded in 2005 between Nancy (who was Nancy Leigh DeMoss at the time), Jerry and Susan Cherry, and their pastor, the late Dr. Bobby Moore.

It’s not really about the length of time you spend praying for your leaders so much as the heart behind it. I hope you’ve been challenged to be more consistent in praying for your pastor, your pastor’s family, and other leaders in your church.

Tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts, we’ll hear from a sweet friend whose husband served in pastoral ministry for almost fifty years. Jani Ortlund will help us understand some of the unique challenges and pressures that come along with being married to your pastor. I hope you’ll join us for that. Now, let’s close in prayer. Here’s Nancy. 

Nancy: Father, in this moment we want to just lift up our hearts to you on behalf of our pastors, our spiritual leaders. Thank You, Lord, for these men of God who serve the flock of God, who followed Your calling, those who are this moment in their study preparing to minister the Word of God this coming weekend to Your flock.

We pray Your blessing on them, Lord. We pray Your covering. We pray Your protection over them. O God, I pray they would be men of God, that they would be passionate in their love for You, that you would inflame in their hearts a love for You and a love for the flock. I pray that they would be men of purity, that they would be men of sound character, that they would be men of sound biblical doctrine. I pray that You’ll give them wisdom in situations that they’re dealing with. They’re hard. Counseling situations they may be involved in today; they need Your wisdom Lord.

I pray for Your protection over them. Protect them from pride. Protect them from discouragement. Protect them from fiery darts of the Evil One. I pray for Your protection over their marriages, over their children. I pray, Lord, that these men would be anointed, faithful servants of You and of Your people.

Lord, help us to lift up the hands of these men and their families, and spiritual leaders. Not only the ones in our own churches, but also those across the nation. I pray for our pastors, for Bible teachers, for those who have radio and TV ministries, for those who have ministries of different sorts. Lord, give us godly, faithful shepherds and leaders. Help us to encourage them to be that through our prayers on their behalf.

Thank You, Lord, for what You are doing through these men. Bless and touch our lives and help us to bless and encourage them with our faithful prayers. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen. 

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling you to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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