For those who have wondered what makes for a satisfying personal prayer life, a new study of Protestant ministers offers some definite clues.
For those who have wondered what makes for a
satisfying personal prayer life, a new study of Protestant ministers
offers some definite clues.
To begin, very few Protestant ministers are
satisfied with their personal prayer lives – indeed, just 16 percent of
them are, a new study by Ellison Research of Phoenix indicates.
Another 47 percent of ministers are somewhat
satisfied with their personal prayer lives, notes the study conducted
for LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Meanwhile, 30 percent of the 868 Protestant church
pastors included in the national survey indicated they were somewhat
dissatisfied with their personal prayer lives. Seven percent of the
pastors said they were very dissatisfied.
There was a substantial difference in percentages reported by age group.
Just 9 percent of pastors under age 45 are very
satisfied with their personal prayer lives, compared to 13 percent
among ministers age 45 to 59 and 30 percent among pastors 60 or older.
The youngest pastors actually are more likely to be
very dissatisfied with their own prayer lives than to be very satisfied.
Despite that variation, few differences by denomination or theology were noted.
Pastors also were asked how long they spend in
prayer each day and what they pray for during that time. The median
amount of prayer time per day is 30 minutes, with a mean of 39 minutes.
Although younger ministers are much less satisfied
with their prayer lives, they spend about as much time in prayer per
day as do older ministers. Lutherans and Presbyterians tend to spend
less time in prayer than do those from other denominations, while
Pentecostals and Methodists spend more time than average.
How do ministers spend their prayer time? For the
average minister, it looks like this – 32 percent in petition/requests,
20 percent in quiet time or listening to God, 18 percent in
thanksgiving, 17 percent in praise and 14 percent in confession.
If these percentages are applied to the average
amount of time ministers spend in prayer, the typical pastor spends 12
minutes per day with prayer requests, eight minutes in quiet time,
seven minutes giving thanks, seven minutes in praise and five minutes
confessing sin.
Again, this does not differ substantially by the pastor’s age or denomination.
Finally, pastors were asked what they had prayed for in the seven days preceding the survey.
Most had a long list of topics.
At least nine out of 10 had prayed for the needs of
individual congregation members, the congregation’s spiritual health,
spiritual growth for their church and wisdom in leading their church.
Some things that ministers were least likely to have
prayed for in the past week were the financial health and numerical
growth of the church, their own financial needs, persecuted Christians
in other nations, individual Christian leaders and their denomination.
Throughout the study, Southern Baptist ministers were very similar to the average on most measures.
One of the biggest differences was that just 24
percent of Southern Baptist ministers had prayed for their denomination
in the last week, compared to an average of 39 percent for other
denominational churches. By contrast, 49 percent of Methodists, 61
percent of Presbyterians and 67 percent of Lutherans said they had
prayed for their denominations. In general, mainline pastors were much
more likely to say they pray for their denomination than were
evangelical ministers – 57 percent to 34 percent.
So, one comes to the bottom-line question – what
defines pastors who are satisfied with their prayer lives versus those
who are not?
Identified factors include:
• The amount of time spent in prayer. Pastors who
say they are very satisfied with their prayer lives spend an average of
56 minutes a day in prayer, compared to 43 minutes for those who are
somewhat satisfied, 29 percent for those who are somewhat dissatisfied
and 21 minutes for those who are very dissatisfied.
• How they divide their prayer time. Ministers who
say they are very satisfied with their prayer lives spend considerably
less time than average making requests and considerably more time in
quiet time or listening to God. Other areas (confession, praise,
thanksgiving) are about the same between the two groups.
• What they pray for. The more satisfied ministers
are with their prayer lives, the more likely they are to spend time
praying for “big issues” beyond their own lives and churches – overseas
missions, persecuted Christians in other countries, local outreach and
evangelism efforts, other local churches and pastors, global events,
the country as a whole, individual Christian leaders, individual
government leaders and their denomination. Yet, they are no less likely
to pray for personal and church needs such as church growth or personal
finances.
“The study clearly showed that what drives a
satisfying prayer life for a minister is spending less time asking God
for things and more time listening to what God has to say, praying for
issues beyond their own personal and church needs, and spending much
more time overall in prayer,” said Ron Sellers, president of Ellison
Research.
“These are not minor percentage differences in the
study, but major ones,” he continued. “Seventy-eight percent of pastors
who are very satisfied with their prayer life had prayed recently for
overseas missions, compared to just 40 percent among those who are very
dissatisfied with their prayer life, for example.
“These numbers are hard to ignore – and it would be unwise to do so.”
(The survey of 868 Protestant ministers included
only those actively leading churches. The plus or minus 3.2 percentage
points. It was conducted in all 50 states, with a representative sample
from all Protestant denominations.)