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What role does prayer have in ministry? Every one of the world’s faiths has some aspect of prayer, from indigenous tribes offering gifts to nature and praying for everyday items such as rain, food and health to Muslims who stop what they are doing five times a day to offer their prayer to Allah (Yancey, P, 2006, 5). Prayer forms the foundation of communication in the Christian faith as God grants us access to himself through prayer. As people in full time ministry, do we understand the unique role prayer plays in our ministries or do we treat it like the tribesmen asking for items or Muslims, who pray out of obligation?
With so much else going on in the modern church, pastors find themselves at the centre of all the activity. They are regarded mostly on what that are doing for the church than their focus on spiritual discipline. In the church these days as pastors when someone calls for us wouldn’t we rather “have the secretary say... “I would really prefer not to disturb him just now; he’s busy – meeting with someone,” than to say, “May the pastor return your call this afternoon? [He’s] spending the morning in prayer”? (Shawchuck, Heuser, 1993, 41).
It is too easy for pastors to focus on the ‘doings’ of their ministry and to forget that nothing happens unless God intends it, as that happens prayer tends to become requests in times of need or token thankful prayers before or after events. This does not even begin to fulfil prayers proper role in our ministries as we need to recognise our utter dependance on God in all we do.
To gather the true idea of where prayer fits into ministry, one needs only to look at the Son of God, and how, as the perfect example of our relationship with God, Jesus used prayer in his ministry. Also as God’s appointed messenger to the gentiles, Paul gives good solid examples of using prayer as the foundation for ministry.
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