Christian Leadership: How Much Do We Pray? How Much Should We Pray?

Posted by: ifeelgod on Sunday, January 17th, 2010

Christian Leadership: How Much Do We Pray? How Much Should We Pray?

William J.

I recently was challenged by God concerning my personal prayer life. Not my preparing to preach prayer life, not my in front of the folks before or after church prayer life, not my visiting the sick prayer life, but my personal time with God prayer life.

You know, the one no one but God and you will ever see or know about for real!

So, I asked myself the questions: How much do I pray? How much should I pray?

I thought I would ask you, whats up in your prayer life? How much is a reasonable expectation we should have for our time in prayer? If you had a complete day with nothing on your schedule, how long would you pray?

The topic of this post could just as well have read, what do we really believe! I say that because even as church leaders, in general our actions don’t match our theology or doctrine. What a difference from the days of Peter, Paul, James, and John. Or even from more recent examples like William Seymour and the Azusa Revival congregants.

About 5 years ago the Lifeway research team released a survey that found the majority of pastors were dissatisfied with their personal prayer life.

According to Lifeway pastors reported the following fact, the median amount of prayer time per day is 30 minutes.. Although younger ministers are much less satisfied with their prayer life, they spend about as much time in prayer per day as do older ministers. Lutherans and Presbyterians tend to spend less time in prayer than do those from other denominations, while Pentecostals and Methodists spend more time than average.

Yet, in a 2009 survey the same organization reported that 50% of pastors spent 14 or more hours preparing for their sermons each week.

A review of these statistics clearly point out that we would fail the Jesus question of “Could you not tarry one hour”. I am convicted on this issue. I must do better!

I have started rearranging my personal time with God. Sometimes we just have to take a refresher course on our fundamentals and get a practical, step by step, track to run on.

For me, I have dusted off Dick Eastmans classic “The Hour The Changes The World” and Virkler’s “Dialogue With God”. I will keep you posted as God give me more revelation in this area.

If you need a prayer diagram, I will gladly send you one. Just send an email to 1000churches@aweber.com

SOOOO….. whats up in your prayer life? How much is a reasonable expectation we should have for our time in prayer? If you had a complete day with nothing on your schedule, how long would you pray?

Don’t get spooky on me, I know that time is NOT the only factor for effective ferverent prayer. But Jesus noticed the clock as a measure. I think it is reasonable that we do the same.

Prayer, Christianity, Jesus, God, Religion and Spirituality, christian prayer, Pentecostalism, Methodism, baptist, william seymour, azuza revival, prayer disciplines, hour prayer

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Topics: Christian Living, Pastoral Ministry, christian leadership

 

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