Prayer

Weaponizing the Spirit in Preaching

Every preacher that I have ever met has a genuine desire to preach powerful sermons. It seems that the general consensus among those who teach or write about powerful preaching is that you must diligently and “sacrificially” pray for Holy Spirit power in order to anticipate spiritual potency in the pulpit. To use a common metaphor, your spiritual gun must be loaded before you fire your sermon.

Ryan Lintelman

How to Pray for Smaller Churches and Their Pastors During the COVID-19 Crisis

Since mid to late March, this has certainly been an interesting season of ministry for all churches and their pastors. I currently serve as a pastor of a small church in Louisburg, NC, which is 20 minutes from the campus of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest. This season of COVID-19 is unique as I try to strategically shepherd and care for my church members.

Matthew Daniel

Lamenting the Personal Pain of Ministry

“Where do you go when your calling collides with the corruption of people who call themselves Christians?” Mark Vroegop, lead pastor of College Park Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, preaches on Psalm 55 about how we must not cease talking to God in our pain of ministry. Lament psalms teach us this. We must keep talking to Him.

Pastors Center

Praying God’s Purpose for the Text

You know the importance of praying for your sermon—or at least you should, because prayer-less preaching is powerless preaching. But, even though you believe this, my guess is that you sometimes try to “pray yourself hot,” but barely mange to “pray yourself lukewarm.” I know I do. I believe we can learn from the laser when it comes to praying ourselves hot.

Quentin Self

When Justice Rolls Down… Like Molasses

When I was a pastor in Baltimore, I had a neighbor who was involved in a verbal fight with a woman in front of his house. In mere minutes she had a group of fifteen at his house hurling obscenities and bricks at his house. He ran into his house and called the police. He may still be waiting for their help.

Ronjour Locke

The Trigger of the Spirit

The Spirit of God who indwells the preacher is the most powerful force in the universe. And God has ordained a system in His Trinitarian economy that provides every safety mechanism necessary to prevent us from accidentally hurting ourselves or someone else with His Spirit, but at the same time enables us to engage His Spirit in our work whenever we are ready to fire. He’s done this by ordaining prayer to be the primary way we engage His Spirit in the Christian life and work, including our preaching.

Jim Shaddix

Personal Prayer in Spiritual Warfare

Jesus instructs us that the thief comes to “steal, kill and destroy.” Jesus, however, has come that we may have life, indeed, abundant life in Him (Jn. 10:10). Paul reminds us that his life in the Kingdom is “righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17). But the enemy comes and when he does his only desire is to ruin that which God is doing in the life of His sons and daughters. Among other things, the thief wants to destroy our ongoing testimony with God (witness) and to kill our communion with and dependence upon the Spirit and the Word. The father of lies wants to steal from us the tangible awe of who God is and the immediate remembrance of all that God has done for us practically and personally.

Forrest Moss

Prayer is Power

Prayer is one area of the Christian life where we tend to have more questions than answers, especially when we consider not only praying on our own but praying together as a church. We want to pray, we know we ought to pray, but sometimes we don’t know where to start. When we look to Scripture, we find that prayer is the personal and public plea of God’s people to our Father who hears us. It is one of the means by which God shapes His people both individually and corporately. Corporate prayer is a particular time when the Holy Spirit knits His people together in Him, and to one another.

Pastors Center

Modeling Prayer

If prayer is crucial for the advancement of God’s Kingdom, we as leaders must teach our people how to pray, both informally and formally. We also should teach our people what God’s Word says about prayer. We do this by examining how the early disciples and most importantly, Jesus, prayed in the Scriptures. Our people will then understand how their prayers connect to their sanctification and ultimately, to God’s mission.

Cody Evans

The Pastor’s Closet Life

Never before has it been more important for the preacher to be the same man in public as he is in private. A triplex of words come to mind that should mark every pastor’s ministry: integrity, consistency, and transparency. While God calls pastors to live above board in all respects (1 Tim 3:1-7), they understand that it doesn’t happen automatically. There is no autopilot feature on the steering wheel of the Christian life and ministry.

Neal Thornton