I confess that as a pastor I can often get very near-sighted. ReCAST is my primary pastoral calling, and that is enough. But lately, God has been bringing to me the pains of other churches and that has led me to deeper prayer for the other congregations in my community.
I am convinced that we do not pray for others enough and it often takes tragedy or difficulty for us to even acknowledge that other churches exist. Even then, we must be wary of our own attitudes as we hear of hardships at other churches. Too often gossip takes the form of a prayer request . . . “pray for that church because they just went through ____________________.”
God has burdened my heart to pray for others. I have been moved to gratitude for God’s grace as I consider the difficulties that others are going through, but that has led me to deeper humility and to deeper prayer. How different would the church of Jesus Christ look, if we were just committed to pray for all the churches in our community? It might actually begin to look like we care . . . or better yet we might actually grow to the place that we DO care.