Connect with some of the best...

The online train keeps on chugging! Ligonier Ministries, led by R.C. Sproul, is doing something interesting in terms of providing online training. Sproul and company are obviously some of the outstanding Reformed thinkers in the Christian world (and the world in general) and anybody I'm sure would benefit from their new endeavor. Check it out here:

http://www.ligonier.org/connect/

The Pastor and the Power of Prayer

1. The Preeminence of Christ
2. The Proclamation of the Truth
• The Preaching of the Word
• The Pedagogy (teaching) of the Saints
3. The Priority of the Gospel
4. The Power of Prayer
5. The Purpose of Christ-Likeness
6. The Pursuit of the Mission
7. The Purveyance of Good Works
8. The Progress and Preparation of the Pastor
9. The Partnerships of the Pastor
10. The Participation by the Pastor in the Life of the Saints
11. The Peculiarity of the Church
12. The Protection of the Pastor’s Family

This is a list I published a ways back. The points represent what I believe are the twelve top priorities of pastoral ministry. I’ve posted more extensively on the first three in the past- tonight I reach the fourth.

The faithful pastor’s ministry is built upon the power of prayer. It must be so, for he himself has no strength of his own. The pastor knows full well that apart from the Chief Shepherd he can do nothing, that the arm of flesh cannot avail, and that no eternal good can be accomplished by a mere man. His weakness, then, drives his going to the throne of grace.

At this throne, the pastor first seeks strength for himself. The many toils and labors the under shepherd must endure in order to feed and care for the flock of God requires that he have divine power. Like Timothy, he must “be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Such strength comes through prayer. The prayerless pastor is therefore a powerless one. As E.M. Bounds has written, “Every preacher who does not make prayer a mighty factor in his own life and ministry is weak as a factor in God’s work and is powerless to project God’s cause in this world.”

At this throne, too, the pastor seeks strength for his family. Surely no one is asked to endure more for the sake of the minister’s task than his wife and children. It is they who will bear with his faintings and his failures more than all others, and who will feel the sting of loneliness most keenly as he attends to the people of his charge.

At this throne, lastly, the pastor seeks strength for his flock. Day and night he never ceases to bring the sheep before the Almighty that they might find power and courage to endure in the faith. The pastor knows that the Enemy is too mighty for even the greatest saints, and to withstand his assaults they must “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.” He knows, too, that the world and the flesh can weary the hardiest in the army of the Lord and that this calls for help from beyond this earth, from the heights of heaven where God dwells. Such help is called down by prayer alone.