Don’t Forget Your Own Prayer Life!

By Douglas Kamstra

In the busyness of praying with people, leading prayer meetings, organizing prayer initiatives, developing new ministries, teaching on prayer, recruiting prayer warriors, and encouraging intercessors, it is easy to forget about one’s own prayer life. Under the weight of leadership and the demands of ministry, our prayer life—nurturing our personal relationship with Jesus—is often the first thing we tend to neglect. All too often when we talk about prayer leaders, we seem to have the order inverted. I’ve heard speakers recommend that when churches are looking for someone to build (or lead) the prayer ministry in their church, they should look for someone with leadership and teaching gifts rather than someone who spends hours each week on their knees. But my question is, shouldn’t we have both? Shouldn’t prayer leaders also be fervent pray-ers? All too often we put the emphasis on being leaders, rather than on being pray-ers. The term prayer leader suggests, rightly so, that prayer should come first—before leadership.

Resetting Priorities

My initiation into prayer ministry came when another prayer leader invited me to take a two-week intensive Spirituality and Ministry class at Fuller Seminary. We spent the intervening weekend in the desert, literally, at Saint Andrews—a Benedictine monastery.  Challenged to enhance our prayer lives, we sat in the desert alone in silence—and in prayer. I’d never done that before. It reset my priorities. All of the studies on prayer I’ve ever encountered indicate that the average Christ-follower spends about five-to-seven minutes a day in prayer. Pastors survey only slightly higher. I’ve never seen a survey of how much time prayer leaders spend in prayer, but I know well-trained and highly educated prayer leaders who are so busy mobilizing others to pray that their own prayer lives suffer. Periodically, I even see my own prayer life in that mirror. Prayer leaders are busy people. Leading prayer ministries and mobilizing people to pray is an always challenging, sometimes frustrating, periodically exhausting, and usually underappreciated work. So sometimes we find ourselves speaking “out of our training” rather than out of our personal experience. Sometimes we realize we are leading out of our spiritual giftedness instead of an intimate relationship. While it may not surprise us that in many prayer meetings we spend more time talking about prayer than actually praying, it should concern us.

Jesus’ Prayer Life

The public prayer life of Jesus was saturated with daily praying—from the Shema (a prayer of profession, Deut. 6:4–5) to the Amidah (a prayer of 18 benedictions) to the Berakhot (prayers of blessing throughout the day). Jesus was constantly praying with and teaching His disciples (and the crowd) throughout the day, but it wasn’t enough. The Greatest Pray-er would get up “very early in the morning, while it was still dark . . . [and go] off to a solitary place” (lit. eremos topos; Mark 1:35)—to be alone with His Father. In Galilee, just outside Capernaum, there is a place known as Prayer Mountain (i.e., Mount Arbel). Each day, rabbis (the prayer leaders of Jesus’ day) would rise early and climb this rugged mountain for the sole purpose of being close to the Father. This was no small feat during the day and a considerable challenge in the moonlight. It required incredible effort, energy, and fortitude to make the trek each morning. But they (and Jesus) did so because they understood that extended time praying “in a solitary place” was not optional but, rather, an absolute necessity. When we remember that at His incarnation Jesus emptied Himself (i.e., set aside His divine power and prerogative), we begin to realize it was Jesus’ prayer life—His pursuit of intimacy with His Father from the beginning of His ministry (Mark 1:35), throughout His ministry (Mark 6:46), and until the very end of His ministry (Mark 14:32–42)—that empowered Him to teach, cast out demons, and heal the sick with authority (Mark 1:14, 25, 31).

Slow Down and Go Silent

All believers, but especially prayer leaders, must embrace the prayer life of Jesus.  Pursue time with your first love (Rev. 2:4). You have His permission to slow down to nurture your heart and soul. Find a solitary place and spend 20–30 minutes in silence every day. As leaders we need to stay vigilant! Spend some extended time with the Father—for adoration, confession, intercession, petition, and thanksgiving. But most of all, just be with Him, listen to His voice, and enjoy His company. It will transform your life. It will empower your ministry. DOUGLAS KAMSTRA has been a prayer leader at the local, denominational, and national levels for more than 30 years. He is the chair of the Denominational Prayer Leaders Network and the author of The Praying Church Idea Book. He is also a spiritual director, seminar speaker, and retreat leader.