10 Reasons Why Church Leaders Often Don’t Pray like We Should

Chuck Lawless
Oct 8
4 min read

Over the past few weeks, we’ve looked at how Jesus and the early believers prayed—and our only conclusion must be that we don’t pray like they did. Prayer was so much in their spiritual DNA that it’s not a surprise that they saw God work in such mighty ways. They drove the darkness back from their knees.

10 Reasons Why Church Leaders Often Don’t Pray like We Should

In contrast, many of us—church leaders and laity alike—struggle with prayer. Using the list below, consider which ones apply to you individually. Why do you and I wrestle with our obedience to “pray constantly” (1 Thess 5:17)?^*

We can do too much ministry in our own power.
This reason may be, in fact, our biggest problem. We can study, plan, teach, sing, organize, evaluate, and even preach in our own power. What we do may not make much eternal difference, but we can certainly go through the motions without praying much. If we can do our work without God’s help, we don’t need to pray much.
We’re “fixers” by nature.
Most of us who are church leaders are typically problem solvers who seek solutions, attempt answers, and try again if the first answer doesn’t work. Other leaders expect us to be this way, and we take our responsibility seriously. Our persistence and tenacity to do so (both good traits in themselves), however, sometimes push prayer to a last resort option.
We never learned how to pray. 
Churches make this mistake with most spiritual disciplines: we tell believers what to do, but don’t teach them how to do it. When we tell but don’t teach, though, we set believers up for discouragement and failure. As leaders, then, we’re often reticent to admit that we don’t know how to pray well. Instead, we just don’t pray much.
Prayer has become more about ritual than about relationship.
This point was the focus of the first article in this series on prayer. We know we should pray, even if we don’t know how, so we go through the motions of prayer. It is not a relationship with a living Lord that calls us to prayer; it is instead only religious ritual. Prayer becomes a “check the box” spiritual discipline rather than a conversation with the Lord.
Prayerlessness can be hidden.
We can talk about prayer, teach about prayer, write about prayer, preach about prayer, and even lead corporately in prayer—all without anyone knowing that our personal prayer is sporadic at best. Even if our heart is convicted about our failure, still we keep that spiritual “secret” to ourselves. This kind of hiddenness is an enemy of heartfelt prayer.
We don’t really believe prayer works.
Sure, we teach differently about prayer. We read story after story in the Bible about the effectiveness of prayer. Prayer changes hearts, opens wombs, restores relationships, and moves mountains. Nevertheless, our prayer life often suggests otherwise. We’ve prayed in the past, and still we’re waiting for God to answer. We begin to doubt prayer, and we’re then only surprised when God does respond.
We tend to fight against weakness.
Faced with a thorn in the flesh, the apostle Paul pleaded with God to remove it (2 Cor 12:7-10). God instead sovereignly used the thorn to weaken the apostle, who experienced God’s strength at his weakest moments. It is in our weakness that we learn how to pray, but leaders naturally fight to be strong. We don’t have a theology of weakness, and that problem gets in the way of our praying.
We read the Word in a one-sided way.
Leaders are too often teachers who read the Word for information transmission more than life transformation. When we approach the Word that way, we miss the opportunity to be in dialogue with God. Our Bible reading—even when preparing for teaching or preaching—should lead us into prayerful conversation with God, but it often doesn’t.
Some believers have simply lost hope.
It happens. Church leaders who prayed more consistently in the past sometimes lose hope under the weight of church conflict, family struggles, or health concerns. Because God’s calendar and clock don’t match ours, our faith struggles in the waiting period. Unanswered prayer then leads to faithlessness, which further leads to prayerlessness.
We haven’t dealt with private sin in our lives.
When disobedience eats at our soul, it’s increasingly difficult to pray if we remain in our sin. Our wrong first turns our attention away from God, and our failure to focus on God then limits our willingness to run to Him in confession. In some cases, our disobedience convinces us that God won’t hear us in the first place; thus, we see no reason to pray.

So, what do we do with this list today?

Evaluate your own prayer life on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the lowest.
Wherever you determine your prayer life to be today, do you see room for necessary improvement?
If you see room for growth, determine the reason(s) that keep you from praying.
You’ll likely find that reason in the list above; if not, simply add your reason to the list.
Confess to the Lord your reason(s) for having a weak prayer life.
He wants us to come to Him—so start with confession that paves the way for a renewed commitment to prayer.
Ask a praying pastor or another believer to help you address your reasons for a weak prayer life.
Don’t try to figure out a solution on your own. Instead, enlist a prayer warrior to help you determine next steps.
Take a step right now in the right direction.
Don’t wait. The longer you delay in your response, the more time you give to the devil and his forces to distract you from prayer.