How to Pray for Your Pastor

It’s October! Breast Cancer awareness, pumpkin everything, and clergy appreciation month. We have turned this month into one weird concoction. Clergy appreciation month started  back in the early 1990s and it was originally a Hallmark holiday. Yet, It has come to be celebrated more widely in the United States.

Clergy appreciation month is an opportunity for congregations across America to take a moment and recognize their pastors’ efforts throughout the year. Some congregations go to elaborate lengths with gifts and breakfast. Some offer simple expressions of thanksgiving with cards and words of appreciation. As a pastor for nearly ten years, I can honestly say that prayer is one of the most valuable gifts you could give this month. We each have our own “love language”, but prayer is something we all need and welcome.

So how do you pray for your pastor? Here are some suggestions to get you started.

Pray for your pastor’s emotional/mental health

Your pastor sits with people who are experiencing life’s highs and lows. We will experience in one year what most people don’t experience in a lifetime. You may think we have no clue about the real world. But we actually know all too well. We have sat with families who have experienced death, divorce, marriage, birth, loss of a child, loss of a job, loss of a home. We have visited people in prison, the hospital, and the psych unit. Many of us experience financial pressure, especially when the church finances are not doing well. And we do this while caring for our spouse, children, and congregations. It takes a toll on our emotional and mental well-being. Your prayers empower us to remain faithful.

Pray for your pastor’s physical health

The stress of our vocation takes a toll on our health. We have hero complexes that feel a need to rescue all of those in our path. Therefore, we forget to rest and take care of our own bodies. Pray for us to take our health seriously and for our hero complexes too. (don’t judge; you do it too)

Pray for your pastor’s finances

Finances are a stressor for many families and your pastor is no different. Many of us are bi-vocational. We work a side hustle to keep food on the table and allow us to take an occasional vacation. Pray God would bless us financially to do His work.

Pray for your pastor’s spiritual health 

Your pastor NEEDS time with God and not simply to write the weekly message. We need time to meditate and rest in God’s presence. Your prayers sustain us in times when God seems silent. Although there is a call on our lives, we still have times of spiritual dryness. Pray for God to speak into our personal lives and not only for us to have something to say on Sundays.

Pray for your pastor’s sermon prep

Sundays come regularly…like every seven days. And we need to have something to say. It should be clever and powerful and true and full of life. It is easy to write a message that is clever, powerful, true, and full of life when you have 30 days to work on it. Most of us have about 8-10 hours to give to the preparation of the message. We need God’s wisdom and strength as well as His anointing each week.

Pray for your pastor’s marriage and children

If you and your spouse have young children and also work, then you know the struggle. It is a daily challenge to balance house, work, family, child care, laundry, etc. Pray for a strong marriage in the midst of life’s chaos. Pray for the children to find their own identity in the midst of ministry. And pray for love to abound within the home.

Pray for God to show you how you can serve in the church

You may think this is a weird request. However, your pastor needs volunteers. God did not design the Body of Christ to sit in the pews while the pastor does the work. We need volunteers who are on fire for God and willing to work along side of us. Ask God how and where you can serve. Be a leader and you will become a blessing to your pastor.

Pray for God to raise up more leaders. Pray for your pastor’s leadership team

You pastor prays for you and the leaders of the church. But the leadership team needs your prayers too. Pray for unity, humility, and passion for the leadership team. Pray they would be single focused rather than divided. And pray for more workers for the harvest.

Pray for wisdom, leadership ability, and character

Everything threatens to beat your pastor down and slow the progress of the Kingdom. Satan does not want us to win! We need wisdom for each situation, especially the ones that come from seemingly nowhere. We also need you to pray for our leadership ability. We are always pushing the boundaries of our own skills and abilities. Pray for God to stretch us beyond our comfort zones so we can lead you along the journey of faith.

Pray for confidence, clarity, and communion

The enemy of our souls threatens your pastor regularly…or at least once a month when he/she has to report their denominational numbers. We have expectations to meet for our “job” just as most of you do. Each month most of us have to report to our denominations what God is doing in the local congregation. Those numbers threaten our confidence and sometimes cause us to question our vision. Pray for us to have clarity of God’s vision for us and the congregation. Pray for us to be confident that God is moving even when the numbers don’t reflect what we wish they would. And pray for us to have communion with other clergy who will support, encourage, and challenge us to be the ministers God created us to be.

Your prayers are able to move mountains! Please be faithful in the month of October to pray for us, especially as we are closing in on Advent and Christmas. We hope you will continue to pray for us throughout the year as well. Men and women of prayer are warriors for the Kingdom of God. Be strong and pray well!