Pastor’s Page

Volume 9 Week 41

The Prayer List Is A Window On the Heart!

Just So You Know, These Are The Things On Pastor’s Prayer List!

I started writing this Pastor’s Page each week shortly after I arrived at Mount Calvary, because it’s important for me that you know what’s on my heart. I see it as a sort of appendix to the sermon; these are other matters of church life I’ve been thinking about all week.

I was thinking this morning that one way to see into a person’s heart is to ask what they pray about. Many of you have. Today I’ll share a little bit about my prayer list, and invite you to join me!

Each day (almost; I’m still learning, but this is my usual pattern) I pray for my family, naturally, and for members of the congregation. I pray for those who have made a special covenant to pray for me, and I pray for our church’s mission and ministry to one another and to those in our community and for our members’ generous and sacrificial support of God’s kingdom work. I also pray for God’s work in my life, that he would shape and mold me to be more like Jesus. And I pray the Lord’s Prayer.

And then I pray a special prayer one each day of the week, kind of my Top Seven List of special prayers. Here they are!

Monday

On Mondays I pray for our member care ministries, our Stephen Ministers, our ChristCare Group Leaders and all the people that they serve.

In twenty-one years of pastoral ministry, no matter how many visits I make to people who need the care of Christ’s love, never have I gone through the day without thinking of someone who did not get a visit that day. It’s a glimpse of what our Savior must have felt when he cried over Jerusalem, a flock without a shepherd, so many who need to know the assurance of the love of Christ, delivered by those who care.

I pray for our Stephen Ministers and ChristCare Group Leaders because they have stepped forward to be partners with their Pastor in sharing the saving love of Christ.

This has not been an easy task for these faithful and extraordinary servant. They work very hard and give of their time, but they do it joyfully. My frustration is that so many of our members have been unwilling to participate and receive this care by consenting to the visits of a Stephen Minister or joining a ChristCare Group.

I pray that God will strengthen them in their service, direct them to those in need of care and fellowship, and add to the numbers of those who lead these vital ministries.

Tuesday

On Tuesdays I pray for all the Bible study ministries of the congregation, including Sunday School, but especially our adult classes and teachers. I also pray for every member who cracks open their Bible either alone, with family or in a Bible study with other Christians.

God does his transforming work in us through the saving love of Christ, on display in the word of truth, God’s holy word. What could be more worthy of our prayers than our study of his word?

Wednesday

On Wednesdays I pray for the students in our confirmation classes, including our new member instruction classes, and for the youth of the congregation.

Satan attacks the weak, and young Christians, or those new to the faith, are very vulnerable. It’s a great privilege to sit each week with parents and children and journey through the chief parts of the Christian faith as we study Luther’s Small Catechism and as we review the biblical narrative of God’s work among us. It is so vital that the word of Christ be firmly planted into the hearts and minds of baptized children before they launch into the tumultuous teenage years. The partnership between church and home gets my prayers on Wednesdays.

Thursday

Your church staff, Deb, Cory, Nancy, Leslie and I meet (semi-) regularly on Wednesdays, so I pause in my Thursday prayer time to pray for each of them, as well as for all of our pre-school staff and our music staff, Kristen and Molly who are unable to join us during weekday meetings.

These people make me look good. They are treasures to me, gifts from the gracious hand of the Lord, and their giving, loving, sacrificial service is a continuing testimony to me of the grace of God and what it means to be ministers of the Gospel. I am awed on a weekly basis when I see the things that God is doing through the offering of their gift of self for you and the people of our community that they serve.

I pray that God would give our staff integrity to live faithfully according to their profession of faith, dedication to their assigned duties, magnanimity in sacrifice and love toward those they serve, humility, openness to the leading of God and the advice of others, and creativity after the fashion of our God who is always making new things. And God shows me week by week that he is answering my prayers!

Friday

I pray on Friday for the most extraordinary servants, those from among you who have stepped forward to serve in official leadership positions in our congregation, our Board of Directors, our Board Chairpersons and all who serve with them. I pray the same blessings of God that I pray for our staff, integrity, dedication magnanimity, humility, openness and creativity. And I pray for the Gift Oriented Ministry Discovery process so that all of our members would find their calling in kingdom work, as have these courageous and caring leaders.

Saturday

On Saturday I pray for pastors as the day of Christian worship approaches, that God would bless them with love for the kingdom and the Lord’s people, that he would prosper their ministries, place his hand on them to live and serve in the power of the Holy Spirit, and protect them from the assaults of the enemy.

My list begins with the Presidents of our synod and our district. They carry heavy burdens. I pray by name for the pastors of the Kirkwood Circuit, and I pray for other pastors who have been and continue to be influential in my life and ministry.

Sunday

On Sundays I rise early and pray for the assembly of the saints here in the Lord’s house of worship, often praying over each pew in the sanctuary, that God’s Spirit would move among the congregation, in spite of the weakness of the Pastor, and that something would happen on Sunday that’s not printed in the bulletin.

I pray these things because I agree with my brother St. John, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask -we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15).