Every day at noon, I hear the familiar sound of a bell ding and the voice of my Alexa Dot reminding me to pause for a moment and do something important.
“Pray for the Churches.”
So, every day at noon, no matter what I’m doing, I pause and lift Pastor Wes, Rachel and their children up in prayer. While this is a practice that I have always tried to follow, it is one that I made more of a priority when Wes and Rachel were hunkered in a bomb shelter in Israel in late February.
Though you may not use Alexa to remind you, many of you probably do the same thing each and every day – perhaps even multiple times a day. For me, the practice of praying for my pastor is one that carries special significance.
You see, I’m a pastor’s kid.
My father, now retired, served as a pastor in the Southern Baptist Convention for more than 60 years. Growing up with a father who was a full-time pastor gave me a front-row seat to the sacrifices a pastor’s family makes. My family frequently missed vacations due to church members in hospitals, or for an unexpected death or crisis in a church member’s family. Our home would get phone calls at 3 a.m. – at a time when calls were not announced by the quiet buzzing of a cell phone by the bed, but by the jarring ring of a mustard yellow phone on the kitchen wall – the kind with the 12-foot-long cord that allowed you to walk around in the kitchen while taking calls, while simultaneously wrapping around you like a boa constrictor.
Because he served in smaller, country churches, every funeral, every wedding, every baptism, every hospital visit fell to my dad. Let it be said, though, that he has never once complained about these interruptions and inconveniences – in fact, he would never refer to them in that manner. He has always seen his service as an incredible blessing and often says that he never accomplished anything – that he was just humbled to be used as an instrument by God for His Kingdom’s work.
I’m sure Wes and Rachel feel the same way. However, that doesn’t mean that those acts should go unacknowledged or be taken for granted.
In his devotional book, “All to Jesus,” pastor and author Robert J. Morgan writes, “Some people think a pastor’s job is easy – a 30-minute workweek – but hours of preparation go into that half-hour sermon and between Sundays are countless visits to hospitals, nursing homes and shut-ins. Plus phone calls and emails from friends and foes, staff meetings, deacons’ meetings, funerals, weddings, denominational affairs, counseling sessions, budget meetings, mission trips, paperwork, reference forms, community functions, baptisms and prospect follow-up. Not to mention soul-winning and disciple-making.”
Morgan goes on to expound on the myriad of expectations we place on our pastors:
“We expect a pastor to be an orator, a biblical scholar, a student of popular culture, a skilled administrator, a trained counselor, a conflict negotiator, a one-person complaint department, an evangelist, an educator, a PR spokesperson and a change agent who can make improvements without altering anything. We want our pastor to be young enough to have energy and vision, yet old enough to keep the senior adults happy. We want our pastor to be innovative enough to change things, but traditional enough to keep things the same.”
To minister in all of these ways effectively, your pastor needs prayer. He needs it every day. But he isn’t the only one. His wife and his children also need your prayers. As a pastor’s child, I saw my mom support my dad’s calling through prayer, her own ministry efforts and by holding down the fort during the many hours my dad was on the church field. Wes is our pastor, and embodies everything that encompasses, yes, but could you imagine our church without Rachel? She is what I often refer to in my home as “The Bridge Builder.” Rachel was the first person who welcomed me at First Baptist. I see her constantly working behind the scenes to connect church members and to make everyone there feel seen and welcome.
Trust me when I say, she needs our prayers, too.
So do Caleb, Evan, Andrew and Amelia. And so do all of our other pastors and their families.
October is Pastor Appreciation Month. If you already pray for your pastors, keep it up. Let them know that you are lifting them up in prayer. If you don’t have a regular practice of praying for them, maybe this month is a good time to start.
Dear God, thank you for our pastors. Thank you for the role each of them plays not only in our church but also in our communities and in their own homes. Please help me to see opportunities to support them and encourage them. Help me to lift them up with my words and actions. And most of all, please fill them with your renewing Spirit, wisdom and peace as they go about doing your Kingdom’s work. Amen.
Janet Kendall (FBC Member)