We say we love the Lord but do we love God’s people? We have a saying that we have half-jokingly used over the years, “We love the ministry; it’s the people we can’t stand.” You know I don’t mean that literally, or rather all the time….well maybe some of the time. I’m going to assume that we do love God’s people, otherwise why go into the ministry at all.
In John 21, Peter was told to care for, tend and feed the sheep. I have come to a new understanding regarding this.
After all these years in the ministry, for the last 3 months, I have made it a practice to be in daily contact with our people via e-mail. It all started with the election. I found a great site that suggested praying daily for 30 days before the election. I offered to send out an e-mail with the prayer for the day emphasizing a particular area; sometimes I added some personal comments. Some people signed up to be a part of it.
Next I found a site for “Praying for your husband.” More signed up and we did that for 30 days.
Let’s pray for our children, I thought, and found something that would work. I put it on FB and had a bunch of friends from all over the country ask to be part of it. We are now coming to the end of our 31 days of praying for our children.
I have been challenged by my daily reading in 1 Samuel and 1 Corinthians to make my next prayer month for Pastors. As a Pastor’s wife, I have an inside track on the pressures of the ministry and what to pray for specifically.
I say all this to point out that people want and need prodding to pray. It’s a discipline of the faith that needs encouragement and maybe direction.
After you’ve made your plans and organizational charts, long and short term goals, you must get down to actually tending and feeding the sheep that God gives you. In order to do the work of the ministry it sometimes takes discipline to be faithful to the little things. You just have to do it. It’s kinda like a dairy farm. Imagine what would happen if the cows were not milked 2x/day? It wouldn’t be pretty.
Is your flock wandering? Perhaps being unified purposefully in prayer can be a cohesive factor. God has given us new technology; let’s use it to “tend the sheep.”
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