Proclaimer Blog
Pastoral praying: trying something different
I don’t know about you, but I’m always battling to keep prayer times fresh. Pastoral praying, in particular, can quickly become stale. This is because it – by definition – works in a systematic way. If you’re going to pray for your people (and you must), then there’s no substitute for working through a list. That’s the only way you’ll pray for all those the Lord has placed for a time into your care. And, I would argue, it’s the kind of pastoral praying that will best inform your preaching. You don’t want to be just preaching to the sick and infirm, which you might subconsciously do if you are only praying for them. No, you want to be praying for those doing well as much as those struggling.
But this week, just for a week, I’ve tried something different. I’ve suspended my prayer list for a week and taken just five individuals and couples and tried to pray deeply just for them every single day. Not a kind of “and please bless Bob” prayer (which is what so much vacuous pastoral praying gets reduced to), but the heartfelt prayers of a loving pastor who wants to see his people flourish.
It’s not a sustainable pattern, because there are 200 others in the church who are left out. But as a short stint, it’s been good for me to really work through the implications of the gospel for them in my praying and it’s (as these things always do) rekindled my pastor’s heart. Why not give it a go?