I sat in that Pastors’ Conference and shamefully shrunk into my chair, feeling smaller and smaller as the speaker said, “Pastor, the greatest thing you can do is to get your people to pray.” Citing historical instances and contemporary accounts, he drilled into this. I felt condemned and accused. Why? Have you been to one of our prayer meetings? What? You haven’t? Neither have a lot of people in the church! Of course, this doesn’t mean that they don’t pray. It only means that they haven’t turned up at one of our corporate prayer meetings. Yet this was the meaning of the speaker – the greatest thing a pastor can do is to get the people in the church to show up and participate in the All Church Prayer Meeting. I felt like I wasn’t a real pastor, just someone masquerading as one. And I sensed that everyone around me knew this, too.
And who can challenge this without looking defensive and pathetic and unspiritual? Of course, prayer is important. Of course, corporate intercession is a powerful expression of the Body of Christ. After all, Jesus said that when two or more are gathered in His name, He is in their midst. Of course, telling God how much we love Him and need Him and desire Him is a good thing. Of course, asking God to heal Aunt Patricia’s arthritic knee in Wyoming is a good thing.
And so, at risk of looking defensive and pathetic and unspiritual, I want to push back a little. I asked myself the question, “Where does the Bible teach this? Where do the Scriptures teach that getting the people to pray is the greatest thing a pastor can do?” I looked in the concordances, and the dictionaries, and the systematic theologies and guess what – I couldn’t find it! The Bible does not teach, the Scriptures do not say, Jesus or Peter or Paul never said that getting the people of the church together to pray is the greatest thing a pastor can do. Whew! What a relief! I no longer have to be berated for the size of the All Church Prayer Meeting. OK, but if not prayer, what is the greatest thing a pastor can get the people to do?
In Matthew 22:36, a lawyer came to Jesus and asked, “Which is the greatest commandment in the law?” Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
In 1 Corinthians 13:13, Paul wrote, “But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
In 1 Timothy 1:5, Paul instructs Timothy that, “the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”
After listing many outstanding virtues, Paul writes this in Colossians 3:14, “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.”
Jesus said in John 13:35, “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
There – it is spelled out clearly and repeatedly. The greatest thing a pastor can get the people to do is love God and love people. Let me be a smart-aleck for a minute. Jesus didn’t say, “The greatest commandment is to pray.” Paul didn’t say, “But now faith, hope, prayer, abide these three; but the greatest of these is prayer.” Paul didn’t say, “The goal of our instruction is to get as many people as possible to pray.” No – the greatest, the goal, the beyond all is love. Now prayer is easier to measure than love. We ask, “How many people were at the prayer meeting and how many prayers were prayed?” But who can measure and weigh love?
Pastor, the greatest thing you can do is to get your people to love God. Christian, the greatest thing you can do is to love God. Non-Chrisitan, the greatest thing you can do is to surrender to God’s love for you demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ!
Tim Brown has been in some sort of ministry since February of 1973 – as a youth pastor, an assistant pastor, and a senior pastor. Tim planted Calvary Chapel Fremont in January of 1997 and continues to pastor there. Tim has been married since August of 1976 to Fran. They have three children and nine grandchildren.
Pastor Tim, Greetings in The Name of Resurrected Jesus Christ. Just I read Great Thing article, I’m also doing my ministry as Pastor from 1999 in India, AP state successfully. As a Pastor I agreed with you. Very much inspired and spiritually strengthened. Thank you in the Name of our Lord of Trinity.
When He comes, will He find this kind of faith on the earth – in His church? Will the prevailing posture of church gatherings across the world be on their knees in intercession, adoration, lament, thanksgiving and awe? I doubt it. More likely they will be at at ministry meeting. And we wonder why the church is so ineffective these days. Of course we need to learn love, but our Example was before His Father constantly in prayer. Maybe that is a great place to learn it. His very life is the chapter and verse for such a value. But prayer is hard work and few churches are willing to ask that of the people.
Tim, this is a good reminder that loving God truly is the greatest thing. I don’t think it’s an either/or proposition. Giving the conference speaker the benefit of the doubt—and assuming that by “your people” he meant those already in relationship with God—teaching them by example to pray is entirely biblical. Jesus modeled this with His disciples, it’s practically demonstrated in the prayer gatherings throughout Acts, and it’s repeatedly emphasized by the Apostles in the Epistles.
Unfortunately, many believers have never learned the joy of heartfelt, genuine prayer. This becomes evident at nearly every open prayer event. Some of the church’s great leaders, like Spurgeon or Moody, may have expressed sentiments very similar to what you heard at that conference. I believe prayer is the most underutilized privilege we possess—and it is precisely in prayer that we learn to love God more.