Spiritual Leadership by J. Oswald Sanders

Week 6: Chapter 5 — Above All Else: Prayer

Read Chapter 5 of Spiritual Leadership. Key passages: Luke 6:12; Acts 6:4; James 5:16-18.

If any single chapter could be called the heart of Sanders' entire argument, it is this one: the spiritual leader's prayer life is not a supplement to leadership — it is its very engine.

Discussion Questions

7 questions

1.Sanders makes the bold claim that a leader's prayer life is the truest measure of their spirituality. Do you agree with this? Why or why not? What does your current prayer life say about your walk with God?

2.Sanders catalogs the prayer lives of great spiritual leaders throughout history — men like John Hyde ('Praying Hyde'), Hudson Taylor, and John Wesley. What patterns do you notice across these examples? What made their prayer lives unusual?

3.Sanders points to Jesus as the supreme model of a leader at prayer — rising before dawn, withdrawing from crowds, spending whole nights in prayer before major decisions (Luke 6:12). What does it tell us about the nature of Jesus' mission that He prioritized prayer so relentlessly?

4.Sanders makes a pointed observation: 'Satan is not greatly concerned about our busy-ness so long as we don't pray.' Do you find this statement convicting? In what ways has activity — even good, ministry activity — crowded out prayer in your own life?

5.Sanders argues that the leader who is 'too busy to pray' is, in fact, too busy — and that neglecting prayer is not a scheduling problem but a faith problem. What does our failure to pray actually reveal about what we believe about God and about ourselves?

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Closing Prayer

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Father, we are ashamed of how little we pray — and how little we are ashamed of how little we pray. We confess that we have trusted our plans, our programs, and our personalities more than Your power. Like the disciples, we ask: 'Lord, teach us to pray.' Not just to have better quiet times, but to be leaders who move mountains because we move first to our knees. Awaken us to what becomes possible when we pray. Amen.

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