(upbeat music) - We are coming off of our annual Pastors Conference here in Minneapolis this February. It was a really sweet time of interacting with so many men who are faithfully pastoring small churches. I mean, some large churches are represented, but most of the pastors pastor pretty ordinarily sized churches.

And from the perspective of this conference and your interaction with the pastors recently, Pastor John, I wanna turn the tables. I mean, if you can speak now to the churches that these men represent, why is it important for folks in those churches to pray for their pastors? - One of the sweetest times, and really for me, one of the most tearful, moving times during our Conference for Pastors recently was we set aside time after the evening service and just said, we're available.

We leaders of the conference are available. And we lined up across the front of this huge auditorium and said, if you wanna go, you can go. You can go linger and pray, or you can come up here and ask for prayer. And I was there probably praying for, I don't know, half hour, 45 minutes with guys.

And the stories that were told to me of crises in church, leadership, agonizing over the next steps, children who are very sick or rebellious. One pastor told me of a daughter who suffered from migraine headaches for six years now, and she's 14, and she could just hardly stand the pain.

They've gotten all the help they can from doctors, and nobody can seem to put their finger on it. Another pastor who his own health was fading so fast, he didn't know if he'd live out the year, and he was trying to do his best in the ministry. So the cumulative effect of just listening to about 10, maybe, of these pastors that I prayed with that evening just reawakened in me as a pastor and as one who wants to care for pastors, the extraordinary battle that we're in at every level.

The marriage is embattled, the children are embattled, the health is embattled, the faith is embattled, the gifts for ministry are embattled because we're in a spiritual warfare, and Paul just makes it so plain that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness.

So I think right there in the spiritual armor that we're supposed to put on, he says, put on these things, praying in the Holy Spirit. So our people, we pastors desperately need our people to intercede earnestly for us, that God would protect us, that God would provide every need, that he would guard our families, that he'd guard our marriages, that he'd make us mighty in the Holy Spirit.

So I don't think there's anything our people can render to us that would be of greater use to us than to earnestly intercede with God on our behalf. - Well said. Thank you, Pastor John, for that reminder, and thank you for listening to this podcast. Send your questions to us via email at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

Please include your first name and your hometown. You can find thousands of other free resources online from John Piper at desiringgod.org. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)