Elders’ ministry. The session is not to be an elder board doing only church administration. A session is a group of shepherds. It is a spiritual office and a spiritual work. Prayer should be a part of their work and a means by which they fulfill their calling. Elders, do you have a regular time of prayer during your meetings? I’m referring to more than just to open and close a meeting in prayer. Do you have a time of real prayer for the issues and needs of your church? How often do you pause for prayer when you discuss a severe need in the church or disagreements in the session? Elders need to be praying for the pastor and the congregation; this is a major part of their calling as elders. Churches need to emphasize teaching prayer. When was the last time
there was a sermon or class on prayer? When was prayer taught or studied? Where in your church are your people encouraged to pray? It should be the desire of every church to be a praying church. The pastor, the session, and all members should have a ministry of prayer. A praying church is a healthy church. If we are going to emphasize preaching and the need to have an Evening
Worship service on Sundays, then we are also going to need to emphasize prayer and the need to have a mid-week prayer meeting. It is good to have mid-week Studies, but there should be a time during the week when the church gathers and emphasizes prayer. At our church, we meet on Wednes- days. We set aside a significant portion of time to taking prayer requests and for people to pray together. Note well that I said the people pray. The pastors before me blessed us by teaching our congregation to pray. Who does the praying in your church? Is it anyone other than the pastor? Do your elders pray in public? Is there a place for the congregation to pray together? Our hands need to be on the work of prayer. Without it, we are working in our weakness and not the strength of the Lord.
4. There needs to be an emphasis on a heart for evangelism. It has been my experience that our churches want an easy means to out-
reach and evangelism. We are looking for a technique or a program that al- lows us to follow the steps and have people show up and be a part of the church. However, many of these programs do not give lasting results. Many of the programs are well designed and biblically sound. Our congregation has used Christianity Explored, an excellent program for reaching out and sharing the Gospel. John Kimmons, years ago, came and taught on evange- lism and introduced the “Ten Most Wanted List.” This idea is simple. You pray and pick out ten people you know who are lost, and you simply pray for them daily. You also try and engage them for the Gospel. The people who used this simple program saw multiple people believe on Christ. The problem is not the programs. The problem is too often that we do not have a heart for the lost. Almost everyone wants to see their church grow. You have to ask why
we want it to grow. Do we evangelize for the wrong reasons? If our goal is only to put numbers in the pews and money in the offering, then I think we are off base in our reasoning. We should not be mercenaries in our outreach, looking just for our gain and keeping “our” church open. At the center of our outreach and evangelism needs to be a heart for
the lost. Both love of God and concern for the lost should motivate us. We should have a passion for seeing God’s truth and wondrous work of salva- tion proclaimed in our communities. We should have a love for those around us who do not know Christ. We should have a fear of them never hearing
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or being challenged by the truth of the Gospel. Does your heartbreak for the lost? Do you long to see sin- ners saved? Do you have a heart for evangelism? This heart desire needs to be an emphasis in the ministry of the local church. Pastors and elders need to lead their congregations by teach- ing, shepherding, and prayer minis- try of the church. It should be a nat- ural direction of any congregation that understands the Gospel and what they have received by grace.
Keep Plowing! The moderator is correct. We
need to keep our hands on the plow. But we must have some under- standing of what it looks like in our church. There must be a focus on what God has called us to be and do as a local church. We need to look at these areas long-term. A seminary student recently interviewed me for his leadership class assignment. In talking to this man, I told him that the work of ministry was often slow cooking. While there would be days that things happened in amazing ways, the regular work of ministry was slow day-by-day work. We must keep our hands to the
plow daily. In our congregation, we need to emphasize the central- ity of Gospel preaching, shepherd- ing the people of God, becoming a people of prayer, and developing in every Christian a heart for the lost. If this is our focus and we are con- sistent in these areas, we will see slow, steady, and solid growth in our churches. It is hard work, just like plowing, but it is crucial to see fruit in our churches.?
Rev Kyle E. Sims is the pastor of the First ARP Church in Lancaster, SC, and the Principal Clerk for General Synod of the ARP Church.
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