Joe McKeever

Praying for Our Pastors

This week, New Orleans has been hosting the national (annual) gathering of the state directors of evangelism from across the country. Included among these leaders were their associate staff members, professors of evangelism from our six SBC seminaries, and leaders in this work from our North American Mission Board. All in all, there must have been two or three hundred here, including a few spouses, all of them champions of the Lord's work.

Tuesday afternoon, we chartered four buses for tours of the Katrina-affected areas of metro New Orleans. Freddie Arnold, David Rhymes, Keith Manuel (former pastor of Calvary here, now associate in our state evangelism office), and I were tour guides. We left the Westin Hotel on Poydras and drove north into Lakeview, across to Gentilly, down Franklin Avenue, eastward on Galvez to see the Baptist Crossroads/Musicians Village home sites in the Ninth Ward, out Claiborne Street into St. Bernard Parish, past Celebration-St. Bernard and FBC-Chalmette churches, north on Paris Road to Interstate 10, and then westward back into the city. We drove onto the campus of our seminary where an official boarded each bus to give us the grand tour of this site. Then, it was back to the French Quarter for café au lait and beignets at Café du Monde. (Our pastors who read this may rightfully be concerned that we did not come by your church when we were so close. We were on a strict schedule, and tweaked it continually in order to see as much as possible and yet get the group back on time.)

Along the way, we prayed. When we passed Lakeview Baptist Church, someone on the buses prayed for this congregation which is facing a great challenge after their merger with Sojourn, and for Pastor James Welch. At Pontchartrain Baptist Church, we prayed for Pastor Jerry Smith. At Gentilly, for Pastor Ken Taylor. On Franklin Avenue, for Pastor Fred Luter at FABC and Pastor Oscar Williams at Good News BC a couple of blocks away. We prayed for Craig Ratliff at Celebration-St. Bernard, for Pastor Warren Jones at New Salem, for Pastor John Jeffries at FBC-Chalmette, for Pastor Chad Gilbert at Edgewater, and others (I'm certain I'm leaving out someone).

Which brings us to the subject of today's epistle: how should we pray for these pastors?

We have two choices. We can pray the gamut, and intercede for their health/family/studies/leadership/personal lives/congregation/vision, and so forth. Or, we can get very specific and pray "one big thing." The latter is my suggestion.

I suggest to those who want to pray for our pastors -- and for your own pastor, no matter where you live -- that you consider two large needs of every minister on the planet:

1) Pray that he will always be in the community but separate from it.

Every minister faces the temptation to join the community and settle down. On the surface, that sounds like the right thing to do -- join the Kiwanis Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the symphony board, the Association of Retarded Citizens, and become an advocate for all good things in the town. (I've done all these things with the exception of joining the Kiwanis. Later, I wished I had urged some of our leaders to join these organizations and kept myself more in the study, getting the Word from the Lord.)

The downside to the pastor's joining all these community organizations is that he soon becomes synonymous with the status quo, with how things are going in the community.

A minister of God must stand apart from the community enough to be able to speak to its sins and its prejudices, its rebellions and its omissions. Once he joins the establishment, he loses his prophetic voice.

If the pastor lives in Nashville or Birmingham or Richmond (or any place we teasingly refer to as "Normal-land"), the temptation is to become "at ease in Zion" (Amos 6:1). Those of us who live in places like Las Vegas or New Orleans or San Francisco must never forget that Lot settled down and became far too much "at home" in Sodom and Gomorrah" (Genesis 13:12-13 and chapter 19).

The temptation is always there, and so we must pray for our pastors to resist it.

In His high priestly prayer for the disciples, the Lord Jesus said, "These are in the world....(but) they are not of the world." (John 17:11,16)

A half-century ago, Professor Langdon Gilkey wrote a book with my favorite title of all times, "How the Church Can Minister to the World Without Losing Itself." That's the idea.

The second prayer request is therefore an outgrowth of the first....

2) Pray for the pastor to keep an edge on his preaching and his ministry.

I've thought a lot about how to say this (after I finally figured out why I was effective in my preaching at times and not at others), and can think of no better way than: "put an edge on it."

A pastor is tempted to go to extremes in his sermons. He can turn them into pillows for the saints, making them more comfortable and lulling them back to sleep. Or, he can use a sermon as a dagger and wound the very people he is charged with shepherding. As always, between the extremes lies the path.

What gives a sermon an edge? What makes it sharper than a two-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12)? What hones a message and rescues it from dullness?

There must be a dozen answers to this, everything from associating with godly colleagues ("as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another" Proverbs 27:17) to spending ample time in the Word to staying on one's knees with the Lord.

The quick answer, however, and perhaps the one which sums up all the others is simply: the Holy Spirit. He sharpens the minister's recall, hones his points, and pulls him back from dullness. As the minister goes over his sermon in preparation for preaching, it is the Holy Spirit who sets off the alarms at certain intervals, alerting him that "this will never do" and "if you're bored with this, you may be sure the congregation will be also!" The Holy Spirit nudges the prayerful pastor when certain points need further study, a principle needs refining, a truth needs illustrating.

A pastor has no better friend in his study than the Holy Spirit. Whatever else He does -- and He does plenty -- He will lead the minister to put an edge on his preaching and the application of his points.

That's how to pray for pastors: for a prophetic voice in the pulpit and a sharp edge in ministry.

At the conclusion of Wednesday night's supper meeting held on the 30th floor of the World Trade Center in the Plimsoll Club, after seminary President Chuck Kelley had led us in a brilliant exposition of the history of evangelism in the SBC, they asked me to lead the prayer time.

High windows surround 80 percent of the Plimsoll Club, giving diners a spectacular view of this city at night. I suggested we get up and walk to a window and pray over New Orleans, its leaders, its churches, its pastors. "If you stand at this window, you are looking at the Mississippi River and may want to pray for Global Maritime Ministries, as they reach out to the thousands of foreigners who come to the Port of New Orleans from across the world. On the other side of the river is Algiers and the suburbs."

"Down at this end of the dining hall, through those windows you're looking at the Ninth Ward and the Bywater sections, at St. Bernard Parish and Chalmette. Across this area, you're facing Gentilly and the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and New Orleans East. To the North, we have Mid-City and Lakeview."

"Behind these walls to the west," I pointed out, "lies the uptown area of New Orleans and Jefferson Parish, the cities of Metairie and Kenner, the New Orleans airport, and Baton Rouge."

"Go to whatever section the Lord has given you the burden for and pray for God to send revival to this city as well as the other great cities of this land."

For the next 15 minutes, prayer groups ringed the restaurant. The low hum of soft prayers ascending from the circumference of the dining hall was better than any music, surely a "soothing aroma" in the nostrils of the Father.

Jeremiah 29:7 has become a key verse for me. "Seek the welfare (shalom) of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray for its behalf. For in its welfare, you will have welfare."

Thanks to all who are praying for this city, for our churches, for our pastors.

Ten minutes ago, Freddie Arnold stood beside my desk and said, "We have two volunteers from Indiana taking inventory at one of our NOAH warehouses this morning, a husband and wife team. The wife said to me, 'I've been under a misconception. We thought New Orleans was rebuilt. We never hear anything about it anymore, and people in my state and looking for other places to do missions. When I go back home, I'm telling them they'll be needed down here for a long time to come.'"

We're not asking for assistance or prayer, but for both. However, if you can only do one, pray for us -- especially for our churches and our pastors.

Thank you.