March 7, 2025
Host: Dr. Jamie Mitchell
Guest: Len Crowley
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 3/7/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Jamie Mitchell:
Well, welcome again to Stand In the Gap Today. I’m your host, Jamie Mitchell, director of church culture at the American Pastor’s Network. Before I go any further, I want you to grab your phone and either call or text or email your pastor and tell them to listen today. Go ahead. Go do it. If you’re listening this on our app, as soon as you finish, you can send a link to your pastor and they will thank you for it, especially after this program today because today we want to talk about your pastor’s soul or whatever may be left of it. We all understand that those who are called to serve as ministers of the gospel have been given both an immense privilege and an awesome responsibility. Being tasked with feeding God’s people shepherding their lives and standing firm against the wiles of the devil is a pressure pact task.
Yet the fact is pastors are not supermen. I like what Alistair Beg once said, he said, the best of men are men at best, and I think we need to apply that to every shepherd. Yet from my experience and from talking to hundreds of pastors, one of the fatal mistakes that we make is denying our humanity and forgetting that we need to tend to our souls with great diligence and care. Today I want to explore the reality and lean into the fact that most pastor’s souls are depleted and operating on fumes at best. Our guest today is committed to helping pastors restore their heart, their minds start living through the power of God’s grace and power. Reverend Len Crowley has been a pastor for decades, so he’s going to speak from experience today. He serves as the international director of the six four Fellowship, and this is a ministry, a part of a greater ministry called Strategic Renewal. I want him to talk about that ministry, about what he’s doing, but also his passion to see ministers experienced joy and refreshment and fullness in Jesus Christ. Len, welcome to Stand in the Gap.
Len Crowley:
Jamie, thank you and good morning. It’s awfully nice to reconnect with you after all these years. Well,
Jamie Mitchell:
Len, thank you for being with us. You’re out in the West coast, so you had to get up early to do this and we appreciate that. But Len, let me jump in here. I’m pretty suspicious of ai, but I did ask about this spiritual exhaustion of pastors and this is what I got. Interesting. Spiritual exhaustion or burnout occurs when pastors neglect their spiritual wellbeing by trying to minister to others, leading to emptiness and disconnection from their own faith. Individuals experience spiritual burnout, feel dry, spiritually dry, disconnected from God and lacking passion for their spiritual practices. My guess is with your ministry and what you do, you’ve heard that or you’ve seen that. How common is this with our fellow pastors and why is the ministry such a burden on these men?
Len Crowley:
Well, it’s obviously we’re all human. We all carry weakness in our flesh, but just to highlight a few things, Lifeway did a study, gosh, a few years ago, asking about the problems or difficulties of pastoring and their responses. The collective responses were really quite surprising, maybe even shocking. Over 70% of the respondents to this survey, pastors said that their greatest need was a better prayer life, which has over 70%. They then said that number two in line over 60% was that pastors had no close friends, people they could really share their hearts with, and then over 50% of pastors responding said that they needed rest. So there’s an awful lot on the landscape that looks bleak, but honestly the reality is in Christ and his powering, in powering from within us, there’s a real sense of buoyancy and resilience that we can tap into.
Jamie Mitchell:
Len, obviously you are around a lot of pastors and we’ll learn a little bit more about what you do in one of our other segments, but as you look into the eyes of pastors, how many do you see are empty inside and is it fairly easy for you to pick that up when you’re talking with a pastor?
Len Crowley:
Well, some, I think that the eyes are indeed the window to the soul. I mean, the reality is the heart will express itself in one fashion or another. Though I will say this, the guys that I encounter on a regular basis who are a part of the six four fellowship, there’s a degree of aliveness and buoyancy and they’re being drawn back into kind of the key priorities and the real source of their strength, which is the person of Christ who resides within. There’s really a sense I think that we want to reclaim and re-appreciate maybe even apprehend the reality that Christ lives in you. We are literally filled with the power and the presence of God so that he is living his life through us. At least that’s the ideal, and honestly, that’s where I hope pastors and really all believers will begin to see that reality, apprehend it and then live through it.
Jamie Mitchell:
Len, one of the things I’ve encountered pastors, one of the things that I have seen is a lack of self-awareness about their own personal condition. Is that something you see as you deal with pastors, and it sounds like you are with some wonderful pastors and some pastors who are self-aware, but this whole self-awareness thing, this is a problem, isn’t it?
Len Crowley:
Well, I do. That’s probably quite true. There’s this degree of relentless pursuit for Sunday relentless pursuit of Sunday that is kind of a constant weariness on the heart of pastors. The simple drudgery of getting it done every week, if you will, can really burn the heart at both ends of that candle, a proverbial candle. The reality I think, is that pastors simply need a refocus, a reassessment, and a turning back to the things of old that we’ve always called to from the beginning. So the heart is going to reflect itself in the face, the simple task of going on day in and day out and on, men carrying the burdens not just of their own life but of others. You begin to get dulled and as you begin to get dulled out of all of that comes, I think maybe a sense of the weariness and maybe even the hopelessness that might emerge from that and a sense of self denial and simply sort of shutting down. Maybe that’s what the folks call burnout.
Jamie Mitchell:
Yeah. Well, friends, we’re just getting started and Len’s going to help us. We’re going to return and we’re going to dig into some specific things, even some that he just mentioned from that study, the issue of prayer of fellowship and even the issue of forgiveness. Our title today Struggling Shepherds, lifting Burdens and Building Souls. We have a heart for our shepherds and we’re going to try to help them today. Join with us today as we help our pastors here at Stand In the Gap Today. Thank you for staying with us and I hope that you were able to get ahold of your pastor and that he’s listening because today our focus is to give attention to God’s servants pastors and their spiritual health. Len Crowley is my guest. He is from the six four Fellowship, a ministry of strategic renewal. He’s helping us look at some reasons why pastor struggles and how to reignite their spiritual vitality. Len, one of the issues that I know you have studied extensively and have a deep heartfelt belief is that many of the burdens that pastors bear is because of a lack of genuine forgiveness both in their hearts and other believers’ hearts. You have coined the phrase, and I love it, a community of for Forgivers when considering the church. Can you explain what you mean by that and how does this lack of forgiveness pay a price on a pastor’s soul?
Len Crowley:
Well, Jamie, yeah. That phrase comes from one of the elders in our church we planted 20 some years ago in Monument Colorado, and it really ties back to John 1334. Jesus establishes the new commandment, essentially a composition of all the law of God, and he says, the new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you, love one another by this, all will know that you are my disciples. The love that Jesus gives us, the love that he calls from us is a forgiving love. I think that’s clearly emerges from the context which is where Jesus washes the feet of the disciples and in so doing, Jesus is giving them sort of a physical picture of what forgiveness intends to do, both for the soul of the person forgiven and particularly the soul of the person who forgives. He basically intends for us to understand that we are washed and set free, washed and set free.
This is what forgiveness does to us. This is the cross of Christ. We apply it to our own lives for our own selves first and then apply it to others, and it’s only really as we apply it to ourselves first that we can apply it to others in reality without us receiving the forgiveness of Christ. You talked about being self-aware earlier. The notion of us awakening in a sense to our own need for the forgiveness of Christ, for ourselves is the beginning of our freedom in him, and as we do that, we’re cleansed and then set free and without his empowering within us driving us, we never released the animosity that is held in grudges and resentments and rejections and just the bumps and grinds of life. We don’t release that unless we ourselves are released by Christ for our own sin. But then comes the marvelous transaction that out of us who have been forgiven, we now issue forth forgiveness almost as easily as breathing.
The illustration comes from John seven where Jesus is at the great feast, the final day where the huge in Jerusalem and the high priest is pouring out water from the hon spring and it’s just this remarkable pool from the pool of Siloam and the hon spring and the water is being poured out in celebration of God providing water for the children of Israel in the wilderness, and it’s at that very moment and they’re celebrating the salvation of God. They’re even chanting the word Yeshua, Yeshua in Hebrew, salvation or God saves, and then the Savior himself stands in their midst and says, if any man thirsts, let him come to me and drink and then out of him will flow rivers of living water. So to me, that’s the moment where we had the transactional moment as we drink of Christ and his welcome and forgiveness for us then comes the welcome and forgiveness that we can easily offer other people, and that’s the beginning of awakening. That’s the beginning of freedom as I see it.
Jamie Mitchell:
Well, when as I’m hearing you and as we’re dealing with this subject today of struggling shepherds, let me take the leap here. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but what I’m hearing you say is that maybe one of the things that a shepherd may be struggling, which would be just draining him of spiritual vitality is he himself is struggling with the issue of understanding God’s forgiveness.
Len Crowley:
Yeah, God’s forgiveness for him. And then as he receives that, apprehends it, and I want to say I don’t think we fully understand it. This is not an intellectual exercise. This is an experiential reality that we take God of this word when we say we trust Christ means we believe what he says enough to literally act like it. It’s true. So he says to us, you are forgiven. Well then be freed. If you are forgiven, it is so, and this is a reality that begins to emerge and grow in our hearts. I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but in every epistle of the apostle Paul, every one of them, someplace in the early introductory verses of every one of his letters, he says, this grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, someplace in there every single time grace, but it’s always grace first, then peace.
Jesus promises his disciples of peace that is so different than the peace of the world, not a cessation of hostility, but the real shalom of God. And the word shalom, as you well know, is far more than just peace. It is actually may you receive all that God has for you. You welcome all of God’s blessings in your life. So when we pray the peace of the shalom of God on people, we’re inviting them to really experience the reality of the wonder of Christ living in you, guiding you or driving you, releasing you in particular to be what he’s devising you to become. So it’s the drinking of Christ in the welcome of his forgiveness, recognizing that I am indeed saved by grace and freed in grace. This peace of God settles in my soul and now out of me flows. It’s not something I’m doing, I’m not pouring. There’s no effort on my part. Out of me flows the rivers of living water that gives grace to others who can then also receive the peace. This is the command that he’s giving to us in John 13:34 and 35. And would that be the message in the church? I think that people that would be so attractive people would come from hither and y just to hear more of the same.
Jamie Mitchell:
Lynn, you’ve been a pastor for a while, I’ve been a pastor and we have seen the pain of unforgiveness. We have seen the pain of lacking restorative love and embracing people and extending this forgiveness that flows from our understanding of the forgiveness of Christ. It should be no surprise then if you’re in a church and you’re pastoring a church and let’s say you personally are struggling with this forgiveness, but then you have a unforgiving church and maybe a spirit of unforgiveness in the church that really weighs down on a pastor, doesn’t it?
Len Crowley:
Well, absolutely. I think first of all, he’s going to absorb some of that, the simple environment that you live in, if you’re swimming in salt water, you’re going to get salty. So the reality is the heart of the pastor is bound intimately by the character and the tenor and the hearts of the church he can preach. I think what’s most important is to experience it himself, to receive the goodness of God, to welcome it, to recognize he’s totally unworthy. I mean, that’s a lie of Satan when we start going that direction and saying, well, I’m not really worthy of, well, of course you’re not. That was never the issue. It’s the worthiness of Christ and he now lives as chosen to live in you and to release himself to you. Would you please welcome it and as you feel Christ’s welcome for you, you welcome him and the transformation begins to occur.
But I think when we look at churches and we say if Christians, they’re really unforgiving people, that’s a real mark against us. If that’s the character by which the world evaluates our behavior, we’re doing something very wrong. In fact, a friend of mine said For a Christian forgiven in Jesus Christ who has been released from all the evil and wickedness of his own soul or her own soul said Such a Christian to be unforgiving of anyone else for anything else is really blasphemy. And I thought that was a sharp comment, but he was right on point. We have been forgiven. If we will not forgive, we honestly may be diluting ourselves to think that we are forgiven at all because it’s the natural outflow of people who’ve been set free in Christ is to forgive other people as well.
Jamie Mitchell:
Friends, as you’re listening today, and not just pastors, but all of us listen to what Len is opening up to us today, and this is the fact that because of the wonderful work of our savior and what a great season, we’re coming into the season to remember his death and crucifixion and his burial, his resurrection and the forgiveness that Jesus offers us. What an amazing gift. What a blessing to be fully freed and cleansed by Jesus Christ, but that forgiveness needs to flow out of us and our relationships with each other and how we forgive each other. It plays a part in our spiritual health and in the spiritual health of pastors, and that’s what we’re talking about today When we return, how does prayer play a part in pastors remaining strong in their faith? We’re going to dig into that subject when we return here at Stand of the Gap today. Well, welcome back. We’re looking at the spiritual health of pastors and why they struggle. Len Crowley is our guest. Len, before we go any further in our program, I want you to share with our listeners about your ministry with the six four Fellowship and specifically Strategic Renewal, what you guys do and how you serve pastors, but also I understand that there’s a special conference called Resilience that is happening soon, maybe how pastors can participate. Tell us a little bit about your ministry.
Len Crowley:
Sure. Thank you very much, Jamie. The 6:4 Fellowship is a consortium of several thousand pastors, really nationwide and on throughout the globe who are committed to the Acts six, four mandate. Hence the name six four Fellowship and Acts six, four. Peter gives sort of the job description for pastors and leaders of churches. He said, we will continue in prayer and the ministry of the word. And so we believe that’s two wings of an airplane, not just a couple of words, but really a mandate for ministry. This is our guiding job. If that becomes our priority, great. That’s the way it ought to be. I mean, as Daniel Henderson, who’s our founder, says, the devil doesn’t have to destroy pastors, he just has to distract them. So if he can distract us as pastors from the task of prayer in the ministry of the word, he’s already begun to win the battle.
Our encouragement is to come the other direction and say, look, your resilience, the strength of your character, the strength of your walk with God will ebb and flow as we rely upon him or not quite frankly. And so we are encouraging people to grow in particular in the arena of prayer, but in particular a corporate kind of prayer, teaching pastors how to lead corporate praying in a fashion that is life-giving in a fashion that is inner innovating and exciting. I’ve been to prayer groups really in various parts of the country who follow the pattern and model that we endorse really directly out of scripture. And from the Lord’s Prayer, kind of a four flowing a movement of almost like a symphony. You go upward first. We seek his face first before we seek his hands because often if you seek his hands first, sometimes if you ask first in a prayer time, typically where it’s making prayer man-centered instead of God-centered.
So we’re inviting people to come to worship based prayer. They’re still asking, but it’s first in the offering our worship and our praise. And I’ve seen groups that go for three hours at a crack and it’s standing room only and it’s really quite dramatic. We think that’s the kind of prayer that the early church encountered and it could be restored if we make that a particular focus. So that’s our heart as far as our technique. Is it concerned if you will? A lot of people were prepared well in seminary, not so much in the arena of prayer, but in the arena of handling the word. So on March 18 to 20, we’re gathering kind of all from all around the nation to our resilience conference at First Baptist Church of Woodstock, Georgia. And there’s still plenty of room. It’s going to be a remarkable three days together.
We’re even going to have concerts at night with Shane, Shane and Mac Powell. Crawford Loritts will be speaking Vance Pittman, who’s the head of the Send Network Church planting Oregon that plants over a hundred churches every year. It’s a remarkable ministry. We’re delighted to see what God is doing among the people who have called the six four Fellowship partner in their ministry. And our hope is to advocate for a resurgence of prayer and focus on the word as the jobs of the pastor, not to be distracted by all kinds of other things. And our hardest to bring us back, if you would, to the early expressions of the Spirit of God as we see in the Book of Acts. So we’re finding that to be our heart’s desire that pastors committed to prayer in the ministry, the word growing disciples, the kind that are described in Acts chapter six verse three, who are people of good reputation, who are full of the Holy Spirit, who are full of wisdom?
And if we do that, we believe God will act as he did in that moment, in Act six seven, we see a stunning moment in the life of the church where the word of God kind of spread across the globe and the number of disciples multiplied. It’s the first time that word is actually used up to that point that disciples were added to, added to added, to now they’re multiplying. That’s a dramatic arithmetic change. And then finally the final phrase of the Acts six, seven is the one that makes me, it says, a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith. Here are the enemies of God coming to bow the need of the Savior. From a human perspective, that’s remarkable. But from our own stepping back and seeing a wide open embrace that the Savior has for anyone who will come, anyone who will come to him, he will forgive, he will cleanse, he will set free. And in that dynamic, that aura sin begins to just pale in comparison and honestly, that’s where we gain our resilience. So that’s what we want to advocate for and hope for March 18 to 20. In Atlanta, if you’re close by or even if you’re not, get on a plane and come join us. You can find information on all of our websites, strategic renewal.com, six four fellowship.com, or even six three discipleship.com, and that’ll direct you to information about that conference.
Jamie Mitchell:
You mentioned the one wing of pastors ministry is prayer, and that’s a great link to this next issue that we have identified as a potential problem. You even mentioned it in the first segment in the lifeway study that prayerlessness is an issue. Can you explain a little bit about this reality of prayerlessness? Why is this an issue and how do we help shepherds rediscover prayer?
Len Crowley:
Well, I think it’s an issue because the adversary wants to divert us from anything but prayer. If we read through a book of Ephesians, the last chapter talks about the armor of God, and we often think there were six pieces. Some advocate that the last verse of the armor is really prayer because that’s how Paul ends that section. Satan doesn’t want us to pray. Well, then what does he do? Anything and everything to keep us from praying, most importantly, perhaps just to say to ourselves, well, it doesn’t really work, or God already knows, or whatever it is, rather than engaging in a worshipful worship based prayer. So we have established this methodology that we think comes right out of the Lord’s prayer in chapter six of Matthew, where we go vertical first it’s reverence. You start with reverence. Oh God, you are Holy Father. And you can frankly look in any piece of scripture, cover to cover. When the Book of God talks about the character of God or implies something about God, it’s everywhere. Go there first. Start in scripture and then praise him for who he is based on that scriptural dynamic, Lord, your Father and your holy or your Savior and your Lord or your stronghold, and you’re a high place. You are the welcomer of our heart. He’s the life giver. I mean, anything that emerges from the text, we’ve actually put together the prayer prompts for all the books.
All the books, excuse me, all the chapters of the book of Psalms. It’s called Praying the Psalms. It’s on our website. It’s a very important tool, but our objective is to say, look, this is what the Lord said. When the Lord said pray, then in this way, that was a command. He didn’t say, figure it out yourself. He said, do it like this. Go vertical first, reverence first and then response in your heart. Thy will be done, thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. And now we get to request. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lord, resources and relationships is what life is made of. Lord, would you provide the resources we need in resources? We need to forgive one another, to lead us not at the temptation, but delivers from the evil one actually warfare.
It’s all about standing against the adversary. So we go reverence upward first and then response, and then requests, and then a readiness that’s sort of a four movement, upward, downward, inward, outward. And we suggest that that’s a methodology that Jesus gives us for the purpose of making prayer easy, making prayer habitual. And as he guides us through our dynamics of prayer, we interact with him personally. We reinvest our hearts in the forgiveness of Christ, and then out of us flows that river of water as I was telling us before. I think we also don’t pray because we think ourselves to be unworthy. Well, that’s the lie of legalism. Of course, we’re not worthy, but Jesus is worthy and we’re invited into the kingdom of God because of him, not because of us. So constantly going back to those basics.
Jamie Mitchell:
Len, we have about a minute left in this segment. We should never assume that a pastor has a vital prayer life. If you were speaking to congregations today, what can they do to encourage their pastors in their prayer life?
Len Crowley:
Well, thank you. That’s a great question. Maybe in quick answer here, I would encourage people in the pew to encourage their pastors to lead in prayer. And when the pastor leads in prayer haltingly, though it may be at the beginning, whatever he may do to try and work in that arena, support that, participate in that back him as he does that. I think disappointment’s the big issue for us
Jamie Mitchell:
Friends as we’ve been listening today, this issues of spiritual exhaustion of the lack of forgiveness, or really being able to understand or embrace your own forgiveness. Now, prayerlessness, these are all potholes along the road of spiritual vitality. Make sure you go check out their website, get to that resilience conference. It’s just around the corner. When we wrap up, we’re going to discuss the issue of pastors and their fellowship and their friendships and relationships. Another Achilles heel in a pastor’s spiritual life come back as we finish up here at Stand in the Gap today. Well, again, the clock is our enemy. And time has flown by. Our guest has been Len Crowley, international director of the six four Fellowship, a ministry of Strategic Renewal. We’ve heard about their conference resilience, and you can check them out@strategicrenewal.com. We have just scratched the surface regarding why pastors struggle spiritually and find themselves exhausted, burned out, depleted, spiritually bankrupt, but not just pastors, really, any of us and all of us. Lynn, one of the things that you and I have discussed is the need for pastors to have genuine fellowship and friendship, and not just a social outlet, but some brothers who can sharpen each other and challenge each other spiritually. Why is this such an elusive thing for pastors to find?
Len Crowley:
That’s again, also a good question. Clearly, we could talk about the simple pragmatics of the tyranny of the urgent. I called friend of mine calls it the relentless pursuit of Sunday, the dynamics of life that can weary and wearer down. But you’re right, the notion of not having friends or fellowship is that the pastoring job is in some cases a lonely job. Pastors often need to talk with other pastors who are theologically astute, who understand the same dynamics, wrestling with the same problems. They’re different than the people that normally simply fill the church on Sunday morning. So pastors need pastors in some regard, which is why we’re called the six four fellowship. It is a fellowship of pastors that believe in prayer and the ministry of the word we’re divided up into local regions for people to consistently get together, sometimes face to face for lunch, sometimes on zoom for prayer, to regularly pray with other pastors who experience the same dynamics and the same difficulties just helps to share the load.
And I think that that’s all a part of real community life. So our endeavor is to help people in the profession of pastoring the church of Jesus Christ, to know that there’s, there’s a job description that Jesus has given that there’s a conviction in their heart that I need to do that. And that particularly to return, if you will, to the original model of Acts six, four. And then to recognize that I need community, others to sustain and support that process. And so we endeavor to provide that with local connecting points. And then our website and our ministry also has developed a number of helps and tools to assist a pastor in building his capacity to learn to lead in prayer. And as a pastor begins to lead formally in corporate prayer and the people begin to pray themselves. Now, your church doesn’t just a church that prays, but now you become a true praying church. And now we’re really demonstrating when we pray, we rely on God really taking God of his word. You do here, you do listen, Lord. So we offer ourselves to you. I think in that environment that’s giving and that’s the place we want to draw pastors in our fellowship to a place of life-giving relationship and friendship.
Jamie Mitchell:
Lynn, as I’m sitting here today having this conversation with you, I don’t know if your mind has gone back 35 years ago when you and I were in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. It was at a gathering of pastors that we met each other. And for the few years that we both were in that area together, we met regularly. We even linked arms and worked on a major project of starting a crisis pregnancy center. But it was in those moment, those early days of my ministry life that finding some people, some friends, some other pastors, was so important. But here’s the one thing that when we did together, we had to be willing to be vulnerable. That’s one of the struggles that I have seen over the years is pastor’s willingness to just say, Hey, I need to be real with some other pastors. Do you find that as a problem at times?
Len Crowley:
Well, always. The resistance of sin is so deep in us, in our bones. Concealment is the first impulse of sin. But what I’ve discovered in the freedom and the marvelous awakening of life that forgiveness in Christ offers me if I’m willing and able and try on occasion. It takes a little bit of energy sometimes because that sinful resistance to articulate even my own failings and my own walk with God and my own stumbles, it immediately takes away the power of shame. It takes away the sense of unworthiness because I’m just admitting to reality we’re not hiding anymore. Hiding is the big bane of sin, and that’s why we pretend. I mean, that was one of the first sins that threatened the church with Ananias of fire. In the early chapters of Acts pretense, you can’t pretend when God is within you looking at every nook and cranny.
So why not just admit it? And I think part of our lives is so shrouded in shame because no one has simply said to us, Hey, we take you who you are, man. You’re forgiven just like us. And the people who understand that dynamic more thoroughly perhaps, and certainly more theologically are other pastors. And when you can admit to other pastors that you have feet of clay and that you’re weak need and you’ve made mistakes and you wish you hadn’t done it, but you’re still forgiven in Christ and there’s a welcoming of friendship of people who are like-minded, that’s where you can begin to thrive. But you’re right, it’s very hard because hiding is that first impulse. Sin says, well, you can’t tell anybody about that. But that’s
Jamie Mitchell:
When I interact with pastors. I want to get your read on this as we come to the end here, and that is, I have said to pastors that you must have to, it’s got to be just part of your makeup. You’ve got to find ways to link arms with other pastors. I have found pastors isolate. They have their own little worlds. They don’t want to go looking out. I don’t know if it’s a competition thing or that they don’t want other pastors knowing what they’re doing, but it really just needs to be part of the pathos of a shepherd to go and have relationship with other shepherds, especially in their own region. Isn’t that just a key to ministry success and health?
Len Crowley:
Yeah. Well, that’s certainly a part of our goal is the six four fellowship is to build those local cadres of like-minded people who are either face-to-face or on zoom, at least praying together maybe once a week for half an hour. I’m on a prayer call, not quite weekly, but almost every week for the mountain region of the six four fellowship where I live, and there’s a leader who guides the process. We work our way through the four methodology of prayer. We pray for ourselves the same way we pray with our congregations, and it just releases us into that reminder of the freedom that comes in Jesus Christ and the wonder of his forgiveness as we all rest before him. He refills us on a daily basis and certainly refills us when we commune together, talking about him and his wonder. So I would say continue to, if you can, pray with other guys who are pastors, and it’s not just the plum of generic prayer, but it’s really deep down, oh Lord, you have really saved me in this particular situation. That transparency opens the way for renewed spirit and a renewed heart, and that heart brokenness that we carry as pastors seems to begin to dissipate almost like a morning fog.
Jamie Mitchell:
Len, we got to have you back. We will be praying for the success of that conference. Thank you for helping us. Listen, friends, pray for the soul and the spiritual life of your pastor. They need it until tomorrow. Live and lead with courage because the church and the world desperately needs courageous Christians.
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