What do our elders do?

Colossians 4:2 (NIV) Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.

I have often been asked, “What do Elders do when they meet?” I am sharing our time together from last week’s meeting and I hope to send you more of these throughout the year.This past meeting we were continuing our discussion of how we will raise money for our building project in a God honoring way. We have spent a lot of time talking about this, because we know that how we do it; says something about what we believe about God, what we believe about the body of Jesus, how we view the resources God has entrusted to us, and how we intend to live out our values. I believe this meeting resulted in one of our best times of prayers as elders since I've been senior pastor. We came to a place in the meeting where we stopped talking and had an intense awareness that we needed wisdom that only comes from God—not wisdom that comes from our experience or the world around us. During our time of prayer, there was a lot of silence, a lot of confession of our own inability, a long time on weak knees, and a sense of struggling deeply with the Lord. This was the main part of our meeting.

Bibles read without prayer; sermons heard without prayer; marriages contracted without prayer; journeys undertaken without prayer; residences chosen without prayer; friendships formed without prayer; the daily act of prayer itself hurried over, or gone through without heart: these are the kind of downward steps by which many a Christian descends to a condition of spiritual palsy, or reaches the point where God allows them to have a tremendous fall.
J. C. Ryle (1816-1900), A Call to Prayer, from Christian Quotation of the Day

LORD, teaches to be diligent to pray in all things. LORD, make our elders men of prayer. Help us to honor these men as commanded in the scripture. We confess our foolish pride. We confess that we are deceived into thinking we can do Your work without Your help, grace and power. Please don’t let us miss the opportunity to see You work in supernatural ways. In Jesus Name, Amen.