Religious leaders are predictably more religious than any other leadership group. Ninety-five percent say they frequently engage in prayer. Scientists are the least religious group. Twenty-seven percent of them say they frequently engage in prayer.
Connecticut Mutual Life Report1
In the Navajo Indian language, the word most often used for prayer is a synonym for “holy person.” For the Navajo, prayer cannot be understood apart from a person praying.2 Prayer is a person acting to recreate the original oneness of God and man.
One of the keys to establishing a consistent Christian prayer life is to become a praying person—and to see yourself as a praying person. Prayer is not a religious act divorced from an actor. It cannot be compartmentalized. It must be part of a person’s self-perception. Until then, prayer will always be a dreary duty rather than a self-identifying action.
Sometimes this is a slowly developing awareness. Sometimes it happens almost overnight—like it did for Jerry Cook, a Foursquare pastor from the Pacific Northwest:
“I had a heart attack last year and spent a good deal of time in intensive care. One night I was hanging on the edge of life, and looking back, I find it fascinating the things that were of no comfort to me as I was bumping into death.
“My accomplishments, for example. Pastor of a big church, author of books, world traveler—all the things that had made up the activity of my life before the attack. They didn’t give me peace. I didn’t consider them unimportant; I just didn’t identify them as eternally important when eternity was staring me in the face.
“That surprised me because I remember thinking that being pastor of this good work for God, this church, faded in importance when compared with my Savior awareness. The thing that gave me the most comfort was that I was up to date in my relationship to Christ.
“Even after I recovered, that lesson profoundly affected me. For one thing, it called into question everything I do as a Christian leader. I did a kind of zero-based budgeting with the way I spend my time, and although it didn’t change my actions as a pastor very much, it did change my perception of their relative importance. I made some lists: What are my most important investments in life? What are my important investments? What investments are unimportant?
“I also became more present oriented. In the past I might not have gotten as much out of this time talking with you as I could have. Since my illness, I find myself enjoying what I do right now as much as possible. I’m not always thinking of what I have to do this afternoon, or next month, when I should be maximizing what I’m doing right now.
“Many younger pastors have asked me how they can avoid a heart attack. They all want to keep operating at a thousand miles an hour and yet heart-attack-proof themselves. I tell them I heart-attack-proofed myself—I exercised, ate properly, had physicals—and it didn’t prevent mine. I ask them to consider two things: In your intensity to do the work of the kingdom, are you placing the faith itself first or the form of the faith? If you are putting the church ahead of the faith, that’s a red flag. It will lead to stress and frustration.
“Then I ask them to consider this: Do you want to invest your life in maintaining the form of the Christian church? Or do you want to invest your life in the spiritual well-being of the body? Both are important, but one always comes first in your thinking. Which one is it for you? Then I relate that my heart attack confirmed for me that my concentration should be on the second—which means I need to see myself as a humble pray-er not a super pastor.
“My prayer life is a time of fellowship with God. It has intensified since my heart attack, and I think much of it has to do with being grateful for life. Also, I learned dependence in the hospital. As I was lying in intensive care, I felt helpless, and helpless doesn’t feel good. Someone had to brush my teeth; someone had to roll me over; someone had to help me go to the bathroom. I recognized my dependence on God.
“Out of that I have continued to feel closer to God, developing what I call lifestyle praying: I walk with God at all times, though at certain periods it intensifies. I keep a prayer diary that I review periodically. I have morning prayers and afternoon prayers. But basically I want my prayer life to be reflected in the whole way I live my life. Christ is present with us now. That’s not mystical, but it is sacred. I want my whole life to revolve around the sacred.”
Jerry Cook experienced a revamping of the way he viewed himself. His core perception was changed from “activist pastor” to “praying person.” Psychologists tell us that such a reordering of self-perception is essential if longstanding habits are to be changed. If we think we can do something, or if we see ourselves as people who normally do such a thing, we are more likely to do it.
Such self-perceptions are determined by two factors: our own desires and the pressures of our environment. Who do we want to be? And what do people around us think we are? What do they think we should be?
Christian leaders generally want to view themselves as men and women of prayer. But sometimes the pressures of their environment do not contribute to that perception. Followers often assume their leader’s prayer life is healthy but do not help nurture it. Will Sanborn, associate pastor of Highland Park Evangelical Free Church in Columbus, Nebraska, asked a group of pastors to rate the most important personal characteristics they need to bring to their ministry. They rated the top five as:
• Love of God
• Servant’s heart
• Good prayer life
• Bible knowledge
• Love of people
Sanborn also asked what the pastors thought the members of their churches felt were the most important characteristics in a pastor. They thought the top five would probably be:
• Speaking ability
• Good personality
• Outgoing person
• Bible knowledge
• Love of God
“Good prayer life” dropped from number three to number sixteen.3
These pastors’ perceptions may reflect a frustration they have with combining their prayer life and ministry. They rate prayer as an important component of ministry, but they do not feel supported in that perception by the people they serve. Other studies have shown that when the expectations of the leader and those of the followers don’t match, frustration is bound to result. It is evident that pastors don’t feel as supported in their commitment to be praying pastors as they could be. How does a Christian leader come to the place of seeing himself as a praying person?
Sometimes it does take a life-threatening experience. Like Jerry Cook, those who have them testify to the soul-searching produced, which often results in a changed perception of self.
For many others, the perception comes more gradually. Subtly, prayer becomes the focus of life rather than a duty tacked on at the beginning or end of the day. Until it becomes lifestyle praying, it will be a frustration both to the Christian leader and the people he or she serves, who must be shown the fruits of a commitment to prayer.
What are the fruits of lifestyle praying? First, the praying person is innocent of guile. No hidden agendas in prayer, no ulterior motives. The praying person is one who learns the hidden mysteries of the kingdom through conversation with the King. Remember Jesus’ prayer in Matthew 11: “O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding the truth from those who think themselves so wise, and for revealing it to little children.”
Not only is honesty a fruit of lifestyle prayer, but honest prayer also helps make us praying persons. When asked, What does God really expect of you in your prayer life? the answers of Christian leaders rarely took the form of how many more minutes they should pray. Far and away the most frequent response was “God wants me to be honest with him.” John Newman once said in a sermon, “To be totally honest is to be already perfect.”4
Second, the praying person seeks God’s mind. As Matthew 6:7, 8 reminds us, “Don’t recite the same prayer over and over as the heathen do, who think prayers are answered only by repeating them again and again. Remember, your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him.” The praying person is looking for an answer to one question: What does God want in this? Not What do I want God to do for me? The joy of discovering that what God wants in our lives makes us the most effective, fully functioning Christians we can be moves prayer from the status of pious act into the realm of communion with God.
That kind of commitment reflects itself in leadership tasks. Business meetings consider God’s will the focal point of decision making. Sermons and addresses reflect a searching for God in the secular lives we lead. Interpersonal relationships operate on biblical standards rather than manipulative technique. Such wholesale commitment, rare as it is, will be noticed.
Third, there are times when the praying person recognizes that nothing but prayer is the thing to do. Satan’s attacks vary in intensity. They never exceed that which we can bear, but they do sometimes require all the spiritual power we can muster. The praying person sometimes needs to draw apart to concentrate all energies on God and his power.
The Holy Spirit does indeed answer the sincere searchers and fill them with the power to become praying people—in God’s eyes and their own.
Research and Forecasts, Inc., American Values in the 80s: The Impact of Belief (Hartford, Connecticut: Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, 1981), 216.
Sam Gill, “Prayer as Person: The Performative Force in Navajo Prayer Acts,” History of Religions 17, 2 (1977-78): 143-157.
Will Sanborn, “When You’re Looking for a Pastor,” Leadership (Summer 1985).
John Henry Newman, “Unreal Words,” in Warren Wiersbe, Listening to the Giants (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1980), 23.
Copyright © 1985 by Christianity Today
