When was the last time you prayed for your pastor?

I’m sure you can remember the last time you groused about their preaching, lack of cultural relevance or the meager number of respondents to Sunday’s altar call. Let me ask again, though: When was the last time you prayed for the person in the pulpit on Sunday?

Quick to judge

We are quick to judge the quality of a given message before we consider asking the Holy Spirit to move with power in the words preached. We write off the pastor’s ability to “bear fruit,” yet we fail to pray for a blessing on their ministry. We leave the pastor’s preaching duties to them while keeping our pious pursuit as pew-warmers our focus.

We file into the pews each Sunday expecting our pastors — most likely seminary trained — to hit the sermonic ball out of the park. If it is anything less, they have failed to properly prepare and have wasted 35 minutes of our caffeine-saturated mornings we can never get back. It is entirely their fault, and we march to the parking lot with the heartburn of disappointment. Before too long, we grumble about the flat message that didn’t convict us or cause our hearts to swell. Or even scarier, we get into our cars and accept the lackluster message and say, “They did their best.”

No prayer, no power

We forget preaching is not simply man’s game. Don’t get me wrong, I think preparing for a message is an important part of a pastor’s duties. However, Karl Barth describes the necessary unity of prayer and study in a helpful manner.

“Prayer without study would be empty. Study without prayer would be blind,” Barth states. As pastors practice this unity of prayer and study, we have a responsibility to join our pastors in these prayers. I hope our pastors are praying for the Holy Spirit to use them as a mouthpiece to speak forth words of life. Even if they are, it is our responsibility and privilege to offer our support in praying the same thing.

Cooperating with the Spirit

We know God’s word can stand on its own feet because the Spirit moves through its exposition. In some sense, then, I am encouraging us to pray man out of the Spirit’s way. Better yet, to see the pastor’s cooperation as the mouthpiece in voicing the Spirit’s words to the congregation.

Preaching is not about the pastor. It is about spreading the feast of scripture for the nourishment of the congregation by the power of the Spirit and to the glory of the Father. So as we pray for our pastor’s study, preparation and presentation of the sermon, we must also bear in mind the hearts present in the service. Pray for the Spirit to empower the pastor and soften the hearts of the congregants.

As we attend Sunday services or chapels, may we be quick to pray for the Spirit’s movement in the execution of a message and the heartfelt response of those in attendance. Above all, may the words of 1 Peter 4:11 resound: “Whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies — in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”