A Prayer for Pastors

May 31, 2011

Dear St. Paul's Family,

As many of you know, I am spending the next eight days attending Annual Conferences in Tampa, FL, and Des Moines, IA. In addition to our normal business, this year’s gatherings will include the election of delegates to next year's General Conference, as well as legislative discussion about the church's stance on several hot-button, headline-grabbing issues. These sessions will be significant occasions for discernment, dialogue, and debate.

But these are also times for clergy like me to reunite with old friends and establish new connections. So much of what is important about Annual Conference happens outside the auditorium, in the hallways and over meal tables, sharing stories of how life in the pastorate has been over the past year. Sometimes, the stories I hear are ones of joy and achievement: transformed lives, dynamic ministries, professions of faith. But all too often, clergy come together in these occasions to solicit prayerful support from each other for the doldrums of ministry: church conflicts, faltering economies, enduring fatigue, and spiritual dryness.

Last year at this time I used my Mid-Week Message as an invitation for you to pray for the pastors in the church. I thought I would encourage you to do the same again, and this time I've written a prayer that you might use as a guide in the days and weeks to come. This is by no means an exhaustive prayer, as it may spur additional avenues for you to explore in the ways you pray for me and others. I would certainly appreciate your prayers as I continue to lead this beautiful St. Paul's congregation and its lovely people. But I wonder if you can extend your prayers to cover other ministers, near and far, including clergy you don't know, who depend on the strength of the Holy Spirit to carry out their work in difficult settings and trying times.


Gracious God,

We thank you for the call that you have given women and men to serve as ministers in your church. We remember that theirs is a holy calling, grounded in the theological and biblical roles of prophets, priests, and psalmists, for the work of challenging, nurturing and ordering the life of your people. You have composed a rich, diverse, covenantal communion, whose pastors display a wide range of skills and passions, from all walks and seasons of life. In particular, we thank you for those who have or will soon retire, for their long years of service, and for the legacy they leave behind. We thank you for those who are fresh into the tender years of their work, especially those who will soon be licensed, commissioned, and ordained to ministry.

Yet, we acknowledge that the journey is often difficult for those who pursue your call. We pray for those who are dealing with physical, emotional, mental, or financial hardship. Grant them courage for their disabilities, guidance for their difficulties, supportive loved ones to surround them in their darkest days, renewed strength for their moments of fatigue, and the willingness to make necessary changes toward health and wholeness.

We pray for those struggling to find adequate balance between the demands of leadership and their responsibilities to family and self-care. Grant them the ability to discern healthy choices, prioritize what is most important, and to tend to those areas of life that nourish their souls and tend to their relationships.

We pray for those dealing with isolation and loneliness, separated perhaps by distance from close friends and colleagues, or who serve in communities where pastoral boundaries preclude close friendships with parishioners. We pray for a dramatic increase in the numbers of pastors involved in clergy covenant groups, that they may discover the strength of companionship. May these groups afford them the chance to celebrate without seeming boastful, and to mourn without appearing indulgent.

We pray for pastors whose current spiritual state is likened to a dry, parched wilderness. We pray for those whose difficult years in ministry have sapped them of joy, robbed them of creativity, and drained them of a desire to seek your spirit of innovation and imagination. Tend to them as ravens at the Brook Cherith. Restore their energies, and inspire them to new ways of serving your people and the world.

We pray that you will renew within pastors a holy passion for the Scriptures. Open their eyes to new interpretive possibilities, and fill them with new zeal for its preaching, its teaching, and its embodiment through their example. May they see themselves as wordsmiths of the Word, falling in love once again with the beauty of human language, and its power to name, claim, and sustain our commitment to be your people.

We pray for pastors struggling with congregations mired in conflict, who must mediate between people caught in sharp disagreements and taxing arguments. Grant your spirit of peace, and empower a commitment to reason and compromise.

We pray for pastors whose patterns of spiritual discipline have long gone untended. Forgive those whose regular practices of prayer, Bible reading, ministry to the needy, fasting, tithing, meditation, and study have lapsed into inactivity. Call them to flex their atrophied muscles, that they may build up their capacity to serve your church over the long haul.

We pray that you will give pastors a new sense of joy in their ministry. Remind them of the first moments when you whispered your call into their ears. Strip away the layers of painful memories that now muffle the clarity and vitality of those first effusive moments. Instead, buoy their call with hope, fill them with laughter, grant them holy humor, and remind them that "the joy of the Lord is their strength."

We pray for the development of mentoring relationships, for older pastors willing to share a lifetime of lessons learned and mistakes overcome, and for younger pastors willing to exhibit humility and reverence for those who would teach them. Provide each Samuel a willing Eli, an Elijah for every Elisha, and a Naomi for every Ruth.

We pray for the Bishop and the Cabinet, and for the weighty episcopal demands they bear in making and setting pastoral appointments. We pray for your guiding spirit in every stage of the process, and for all parties involved - - departing and arriving pastors, sending and receiving churches, and all spouses and families impacted - - that your Kingdom will be built by the best people serving in the right places.

We pray for the emergence of new people into the ministry. May each local church claim the responsibility of seeking, cultivating, and calling people into this sacred task, and we even pray for an influx of younger pastors to lead the church for generations to come.

We give you thanks, O Lord, for all you have done in and through the faithfulness of your people throughout the years. May we continue to serve as the living expression of your love, put into action for the world to see. May all of us, clergy and laity alike, be led by the one whom you sent for our sake, Jesus the Christ, who is the head of the church, and in whose name we pray,

Amen.


Magrey

The Rev. Magrey R. deVega
St. Paul's United Methodist Church
531 W. Main St.
Cherokee, IA 51012
Ph: 712-225-3955
http://www.cherokeespumc.org




WORSHIP THIS SUNDAY
We begin our new summer worship schedule this Sunday, with services starting at 9:30. We continue our sermon series "Strength for the Tough Times" with the observance of Ascension Sunday and a sermon based on Acts 1:1-11.

SUMMER GIVING
We give thanks to you for all your faithful generosity over the first several months of this year, leaving us in a relatively fit financial position as we head into the summer. As people head out over the next few months for trips and vacations, please continue to remember St. Paul's in your giving, so that we can enter the Fall and the remainder of the year in healthy shape. If you would like information on how to set up your checking account for regular, automatic contributions, please contact Financial Secretary Sarah Cook.

TORNADO DEVASTATION IN JOPLIN
We have all been viewing the footage of the terrible damage done to the town of Joplin, MO, and other cities along the tornado belt. Your United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) continues to play an active role in relief and recovery efforts in towns like Joplin, and 100% of your gifts go directly to victims of the disaster. Please make your checks payable to St. Paul's and designate them for "Tornado Relief."



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