Pray for your pastor!

Karl Crawford • April 26, 2026

I was asked to speak at a men’s group of some church trials that I have faced in my life. It wasn’t to complain about my experiences but to challenge men to pray for their pastors. To pray for the shepherds who are to watch over their souls. To pray that their pastors will not take their eye off the ball.


Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you. Hebrews 13:17


Some men, who are called pastors, look at the souls mentioned in that verse as pew-fillers, or as giving units. They do not look at them as brothers and sisters in the Lord, fellow believers, or souls that Jesus Christ died for. They do not look at them as sheep that they as under-shepherds are to care for and that they will be accountable for.


Vance Havner wrote a book titled, “Playing Marbles with Diamonds.” The title is applicable in many churches where the man in leadership treats those whom Jesus Christ died for as chits in a game called “church.” “How many chits do you have?” is a way of determining which man is the winner. In sports it is how many yards you have gained, or how many games have you won, or how many goals have you scored? In church, it is how many people fill the seats and how much do they give?


Years ago, I joined the social media giant, Twitter. My pastor and others used that media to communicate, and I wanted to be a part of that. After a few months, I deleted my account. It was a numbers game. How many were in attendance? How many days in a row? How many salvations? It was not proclaiming the Holy Spirit’s work in the hearts of people, it was a way of judging the preacher’s status amongst his peers.


I pointed out to one preacher that numerous people were leaving the church under his watch. He quickly replied, “That’s okay, it is just the Lord, purifying His church.” No, they were souls in his care. Souls that someday he will give account to the Lord for. I look back at the people who left and at that preacher who left the ministry about 8 years after telling me that. I am not in doubt as to whose leaving most purified the church.


Looking back at some of the men who were to be a shepherd caring for me, the first preacher who had a major impact on my life was a pastor, an under-shepherd, whom the church jokingly nicknamed, “King Karl”. Their name for him came from his leadership style. He was an authoritarian man, retired from the military, who ruled “his” church with an iron fist.


If he ever read Hebrews 13:17, he seemed to miss the part about having to give an account for my soul, or for anyone else’s soul for that matter. It has been said about him by people who were supposedly knowledgeable, that he split six fundamental Baptist churches in his career.


He took his eyes off the ball. I was the ball, Fred was the ball, Larry was the ball, Paul was the ball, as were many others who were “the ball” that he was to watch over in that small church in a small town in Michigan. He didn’t. Rather than being a shepherd, he wanted to be a king. He lived out what it meant to be “King Karl”.


Sixty years later, solely by the grace of God, I am still in church, still desiring to follow the Lord. Fred and Larry left that church when their pastor decided to be a king and spent their lives in the pursuit of other things, worldly things. They made their own choices. They will have to stand before the Lord for their choices. But so will King Karl. The Lord spoke to shepherds who did not watch over His sheep: "Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD. Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD." Jeremiah 23:1-2


The Lord says these so-called pastors have scattered “the sheep of MY pasture.” He calls them “MY people” and “My flock.” It reminds me of the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. One man received five talents from the Lord and made five talents more. The Lord said, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” Another man received two talents, and he made two talents more. The Lord commended him in the same manner. The third man received one talent, and he went and buried it, waiting for his lord’s return. When his lord returned, the man dug up the one talent and presented it to his master. And the lord said, “Thou wicked and slothful servant…” and took the one talent away from him and gave it to the men who had ten talents.


It is serious business when the Lord makes us responsible for His sheep. It is very serious business to be responsible for giving account to the Lord for Larry’s and Fred’s soul.


The Lord says, “Woe to the shepherds who take their eye off the ball, who fail to guard My sheep, who treat diamonds, the souls I died for, as chits in your game.” It is serious business with everlasting consequences.


For many reasons, I follow news reports about preachers who throw away their role as shepherds because of some great sin in their lives. The news is full of them. For those of us who sit in the congregation, it is not time to give up on church as some I know have. It is the time to pray for those men who watch over us. To not pray in a generic manner, “…and bless all the pastors…” But to pray for their strengths to be used by the Lord, and for their weaknesses to become strengths when used by the Holy Spirit, and for them to be doers of the Word, faithful to their wives, raising their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and being examples to each of us to draw us closer to Him. To pray, as the pastor who penned the book of Hebrews asked: “Pray for us: for we trust we have a good conscience, in all things willing to live honestly.” Their care for us has eternal consequences. Our prayer for them does as well—don’t take it lightly.


Maybe King Karl failed the believers in his care and failed the Lord because those who were his subjects didn’t bother to pray for a king. Hopefully though, the sheep, you and me, are praying for our shepherds. They will give account for our souls.  The Apostle Paul calls us to share in our pastor’s work with a simple request: “Brethren, pray for us.”  (I Thessalonians 5:25)

 

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