Season 2 Premier - Interview with Minister Hattie Way - Part I

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to Encouraging Prayer for today's Christian pastors, where I believe every pastor needs an intercessor. My goal is to lift up the shepherds who are on the front line, those who guide or lead a flock of a group of people, those who battle burnout and sometimes walk through valleys alone. During each episode, we pray, share the word, and kindle hope for leaders who pour our soul. I'm Elder Audrey Dowley, and I invite you to join this circle of intercession. Because when we cover our pastors, we strengthen the whole body of Christ. Stay tuned. Breathe deep. And let's go before the Lord. Welcome back to Encouraging Prayer for Today's Christian Pastors. Hey, this is Elder Audrey. I have here today with me Minister Hattie Way, and we are going to talk about this very important topic of praying for it, interceding for, standing in the gap for our Christian pastors. Now, our spiritual leaders, they bear burdens that you know many are not aware of. They have to guide large congregations and their counseling families. They are managing ministries and then living their own lives, having issues with wayward children and having health issues in their bodies, and you know, many things that are going on. And they are often the ones standing on the front lines of spiritual warfare. But here is the question: who prays for them? That is the question. So joining me today is Minister Hattie Way. Minister Hattie Way is a member of Bible Wave Ministries International, where Bishop Dr. Monty Norwood is pastor, and he and Lady Wanda Norwood, they lead that congregation. And she is a faithful intercessor who has been praying for and interceding for, specifically for pastors and leaders. And she has been assigned by God to this ministry. So we're going to today explore this topic. We're going to talk about it. I've been wanting to get her on this line to talk about this very important topic. You know, there are many things you hear people talk about and stress and emphasize, but I want to say in the conversations that Minister Hattie Way and I have had, that is a big emphasis, the prayer and intercession for pastors. I want to first enter into a word of prayer, and then we will go into that very important conversation. Father, we thank you right now for this day that you have made for us. We want to thank your Lord for everything in it and of it. We ask God that you get in the midst. Whatever you want to spoken today, we ask God that you would lead and guide us. Lord, have your way. We are your vessels. We belong to you. Say what you want to say for your servants here. And Lord, I give you all the glory and the honor for all of our pastors, all of our prophets, all of our apostles, evangelists, and teachers, those missionaries, all of those who lead a flock or a group of people, all of those who minister the word, they stand behind the sacred desk and they minister the word of God. I'm praying for them right now, asking God that you touch them right where they are in the name of Jesus. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So, Minister Hattiway, I want to thank you today, you know, for joining me. And so I want you to first of all introduce yourself a little, and then I want you to go into how you first realized that interceding for the pastors was a ministry that God had called you to do.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Greetings, listening audience. We do appreciate that God, I always feel that God has something when He sent us to do a work that He's looking for somebody. So I know that somebody out there is gonna receive this word and begin to do God's work. The way I started doing this work is that uh from the time I received salvation, I've always loved to go to the prayer meetings. And I was just so fortunate to have a pastor's wife and the in the person of late sister Miriam Norwood, who loved to pray and she'd bring prayer requests to me. And some as we were praying many times, I was thinking that I need to be praying for her because she was the pastor over a large congregation of people, and there were always issues. She never complained about it, but me being a member of the congregation knew that there were issues. So the Lord laid it on my heart to begin to pray for her and to pray for her children, and then began to pray for her family and her husband, who was the pastor at that time. And then one particular prayer that really stuck with me. She began, as we would over the years, to pray for her children who were in different places in the United States. Somebody was in Philadelphia, somebody was in Ohio, somebody was in California, and she began to pray the prayer that they would come to work with their father in the ministry. I don't know if she ever told them to do it. I just remember that she prayed that prayer. And that prayer was answered. And I thanked the Lord for it because one of those children that she was praying for is my pastor now. And that pastor, when he got to Atlanta, I don't know if he knew what me and Sister Miriam had been doing, but he asked if I'd gather a group of people and began to pray for him. That time I realized as we as we developed this group of people, different people, mature saints, and began to pray for the pastor. I realized that this was something that was necessary and began to research it, began to study. And thank God for the book by Terry Tycho, Prayed On or Prayed For. God booked helped me to understand the need for us to pray for our pastor. And I just want to thank God for that resource that we have. So that's how I began to realize that over the years, then I began to go to different churches and ask pastors if I could speak to their congregation about praying for them. Over the years, that those churches have numbered about 15 or 20 churches that I've gone to and spoken to the congregation, getting them to pray and trying to help them to see the seriousness of praying for their pastors. So that's how that's how it just developed over the years. It wasn't something that I was seeking for, it's something that the Lord put in my heart as I go. And now it this has become a passion. I see the need for us to lift these men of God up before the Lord and to bring them into the holy place on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Thank you so much for that. And you know, I remember joining in with Bible Way, and you all had already started that ministry of praying for pastors. You know, I I was trying to think of when I first, you know, came into the knowledge of that being an important work, I didn't it was, it was not that I didn't pray for pastors, it was that I didn't see it as this, you know, main thing that you should really focus in on. I didn't see it as that until I came to Bible Way. And when I came to Bible Way and I joined in with Minister Hattieway in that ministry that was praying for the pastor, and I got to be a part of that ministry, and I have grown, you know, from that. And and then what began to happen with me, the Lord has taken me in a very peculiar way. He had already given me dreams about this particular ministry that I had no, I didn't understand it. I saw when I had a dream, I saw the intercession part, but I did not see the praying for pastor part until later on. And it wasn't until after I had been a part of Bible Way Ministries International, and we read the book by Terry Tickle, and we began to really focus in on praying for and interceding for the pastors. And so I just wanted to, you know, thank God for that. So you all heard me right. I did not really understand or the importance of praying for pastors until after I had become a member of Bible Way Ministries International and then began to work with Minister Way. I didn't know how important that connection was going to be in my life and ministry until now. And so thank you so much, Minister Way, for that introduction. And I want to talk about, you know, the specific assignment of praying for pastors. What does that assignment look like in your daily walk with God?

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Praise God. As over the years, you know, our prayer lives they develop. And one thing I learned from Dr. Larry Lee, that when you rise in the morning, you need to first pray for yourself. And that is such a significant part of your day. Because first of all, you have to be in a place of prayer. And that requires that you repent of your sins. And that's a daily thing. That's that's daily, repenting of your sins so that you, so that the Lord can receive your prayers. And then you gotta be in a stance of forgiveness. You gotta, you need to search yourself and see who is it that I'm holding things against. So, what that assignment looks daily in my life is that first of all, I gotta get up in the morning first when I rise and pray for myself. Ask God to forgive me for my sins, those of omission and commission. You know, we do things and attitudes that we have, we uh do some deceptive things. I have to ask for forgiveness of all of that. So I cannot enter in and bring somebody else into the holy place if I can't get in myself. I have to first enter in, and that is a process called entering in. So you need to search yourself. So in my daily life, I first pray for myself, and then this uh Dr. Larry Lee says the next thing on the list is to pray for your family. I begin to list my family members, those that are having challenges, those that need salvation, not one by one, but as the day goes by, God I will have called all of them in a week's time, the names of my family members, starting with the immediate ones. And then I pray for my pastor. That's the third thing on that every day when I rise, I pray for him. That requires me to know him, to know the things that he's the challenges that he's having. So on a that, what that ministry looks like every day is the pastor's name. Not only do I do this work, but the team that prays for the pastor are a sign. You must pray for the pastor every day. So it and it many times there are things that are going on, the Holy Spirit will reveal them to you. You don't know the specifics, but you know that you need to pray. You he'll put an urgency in your spirit, lift the pastor up, lift the pastor up for this or that. There are different issues, but then also we're so fortunate that we pray with our pastor and he gives us prayer requests. So the things that are on his heart, the things that he needs to accomplish, we pray for those things. So that's what it looks like in my life. And those of us who are getting this word and know that this is important, you'll eventually begin to know your pastor, and you have to know him. Many people is so unfortunate, they go to churches, but they don't know the pastor, they know who he is. But I'm talking, know him as a person, and there's a way to do that without invading in his life or encumbering on his time. That is a way to know him. You can always make sure that you're in your daily life. You can send the pastor notes, send him a text after he preach a sermon. You know, you don't want to stand up in the church after service and hold him up, but there are things that you can do that you might be so in your daily walk, as God put the urgency in your heart, those of you who are listening to this podcast, that is a way to get it done, a way that you can know your pastor, and a way that you can include him in your daily life. Not only that, as you go through your day, many times the Holy Spirit will lead you, you'll be you'll you'll say you just had a thought about your pastor. But what that thought is, the Holy Spirit is leading you to utter a word for him. Sometimes he's in a crisis, sometimes he's uh things about to happen that should not happen, and you can prevent them. You don't many times you don't ever know what they are. But if you when he you don't say that he just came to your mind, but start using the word the Holy Spirit brought him to my mind that I might lift him up before the Lord. So that's what it looks like in our daily walk, in our daily life, and um the every day praying for this pastor.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

And so, Minister Wade, I know you talked about you know how you got into it. I wanted I want to know when was the point that you knew that this was not just a moment in prayer, but that it was actually a ministry calling for you.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Well, I never thought on it as a ministry calling for me, but exactly that's what it is, because I need the team. But this progressed over the years, and we've been doing it. I think our pastor has been with us since 2006, and over the years, this team has developed. But then as the years went by, and I cannot point out which year God would tell me to call up pastors, these pastors that I know and ask them if you can come to speak to that congregation. Then I began to realize that this was so important that not only do I need to do this work, but other congregations, other people need to know that this is so important that we pray for the man of God. So it developed over the years. And uh, and then we really start as as we the team would study, I began to realize this is so significant. And one thing about the work that I was doing, when I was doing this work, going to different churches, and I said about 15 to 20 churches I've gone to to encourage them to pray, I would go back and follow up. And that's why the work has been over the years. I'd go back to the church to see how they are doing, what are they doing, and check, check, spot check, see is there somebody praying for this pastor? So it developed over the years.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Okay, and so you, I know you and I we've talked, you know, about you know, some of the pressures that pastors have or some of the reasons why it's so important to pray for them. Can you just share, you know, from your own heart about why what why is it so important to pray for pastors to intercede?

SPEAKER_00 15:41

First of all, I think the congregation needs to look at the pastor differently. I don't know where you are going, but I want you to think about your pastor. When he comes, he comes to bring you sermons on Sunday and wins the Bible studies. And when he gets in that pulpit, he doesn't get up that complaint about all of the pressures that he's had through that day. And you will never know them because generally pastors don't just put it out there like that. But if you could follow him around and actually see the things that a pastor goes through, and it's not that I'm there, but the Lord gives us uh the spirit of the discerning of spirits. We discern something is going on, so we know that the pastor's been through a lot of pressures. So, what it is you need to understand that if we would just see the humanity of these people, they are people just like us. You know, I heard a saying years ago, someone told me the ground at the foot of the cross is level. In other words, we all stand in the same place. God did not elevate the pastor and exempt him from problems, he has the same problems that we have, and then some. And I I I've wrote out a scripture, and hopefully I'll get to it where the apostle Paul was saying, not only do I have what these problems that I'm having with people trying to kill me and murder me, and he had physical people behind him, but then he said, I have the care of all of these churches. Think about your pastor and his life. If he has children, if he has a wife, he has the same thing that you and your home has. But not only does he have that, he has the care of all the members of the church. And we don't think about his humanity and we put unnecessary things on the pastor simply because there are many times we could, we could, if we would follow the instructions that the pastor have given us, read your word, pray, come to the prayer meetings, bring your children to church. If we'd follow those instructions, we'd be further along, but we don't follow the instructions, but we think the pastor is gonna pray the problems away. So we get in the prayer line and get him praying. He cannot pray your problems away. You in and in what you're actually doing, and nobody's saying don't go down to the prayer line, and nobody said no, consult your pastor, but you think about it, think about it. He has all not you, but he has all of the other members. So if we just think about his humanity, that he's a person, he has the same issues, he has the same, he we live in the same world. He can't go to the gas company and say, I'm the preacher, and and and they erase his bill. He got them same bills you got, and his he got the same children you got. His children are not in a bubble, his children go to the same schools your children go to, they exposed to the same thing. So if we would just think about his humanity and the things that a pastor goes through, I think we would be better further along and not always thinking about getting the path. I need the pastor to do something for me. What is it that you need to do for him?

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Pray, amen, amen. So, Minister Way, we know that you know, the average person has spiritual warfare just like you explained. But, you know, why do you think pastors or can you tell you know the audience why you think pastors have such an intense spiritual warfare that needs intercession?

SPEAKER_00 19:20

First of all, when when I think think about this question, we need to understand the pastor is the appointed leader. That this is the man that God has put in his place, the man that, and and if you think about what happened, first of all, when the Lord was here on the earth teaching his disciples, first thing he told them to do to stay in Jerusalem, stay there until you be endued with power. And these men stayed there until the Holy Ghost fell. And after the Holy Ghost fell, think about what God had told these men. And I had the scriptures written down, but I just want to talk about it now. He was saying to them, Stay there because you're gonna need this power for the things that are gonna that you that you might be that you're gonna encounter. So what they did, they stayed until they received the Holy Spirit. But then what is it? What happened after that? He he told them, You shall have these works that I have done, you shall do these works and greater works. Now he commissioned them disciples and told them that. Then after he told them they were gonna do the greater works, then one scripture is said here, he said, and you are. So think about what the devil is doing. The devil is after Christ, but he's after Christ through the men of God, because these men are standing in the place of Christ, they are standing in his place, and the devil and the devil is a strategic devil. He knows that if he gets the leader, then the rest of the people are gonna fall behind him. Think about that. The devil knows how to get the man at the top, then he doesn't have to work as hard because the rest of us we come up under that man. We we so we need to think about how why the devil is after this. It's just like it's a contract down on the pastor's back all the time because the devil's trying to take him down, because he represents Christ, and that's what the devil did in the very beginning before he was kicked out of heaven trying to take down the man of God is one of his main functions in the earth, man.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

So when we're thinking about this, we're thinking about, I know this is a ministry that is impressed upon me, it's a ministry that is impressed upon you, but how can the church community, the the body of Christ worldwide, how can we do more than just say, you know, Pastor, we're praying for you? What can we do to actually? Be effective in this ministry of interceding for the pastors.

SPEAKER_00 22:06

One thing each individual Christian needs to think about. We have been commanded to pray for these people in 2 Timothy, in uh 1 Timothy 2 and 1. It says, pray for all of those that are in authority. We've been commanded. It's not a suggestion, it's a command to pray for the people that are in authority. Who has more authority, even in the earth and in the kingdom of God, the pastor has the authority. You need to be praying. We have been commanded to do that now. Now, but listen, it's a labor of love. Prayer is a labor of love. This is I'm saying you need to know your pastor, know who he is, know it, know the things that he's encountering, not by approbing him, but if you if you talk to the Lord, he will give you what you need to be able to earnestly pray for him. And one thing that you need to be thinking about is that if you pray for him, your prayers are effective. The Lord is going to move on his behalf and move things that are in his way if you do that. So the general church population, we've been commanded to do it. And those of us who are not doing it on a regular basis, you have not followed the command of the Lord to pray for this man who's in authority. Not only this, um, the things that uh what did the apostle Paul said about the apostles once? He said, This they did. First, they gave themselves to the Lord, then they gave themselves to the men of God for whatever service they had need of them. What is it that you can do in your church that you've been avoiding? What is it? It would help the pastor so much if you that they didn't have to recruit you to come and sweep the floor, they didn't have to recruit you to cut the grass or plant the flowers around the church. The general population of the church has duties and simple things that they could do to relieve the stress on the pastor. But we come to church, sit in our seat, and when that service is over, we go home, never thinking about what the past and the pastor has the responsibility of all these things. He has the responsibility of the entire church to make sure things run with surely he got people that help him, but those people are usually overtaxed because they can't get the rest of us to do something to help them. So the general population of the church, each of you need to be convicted in your spirit. What is it that I can do to help my church? Can I go wash the window seals? Can I go up there instead of them hiring somebody to clean the toilets? I'm at home all day. I can run up and pull little cloak rocks in the toilet. What is it that you as an individual can do? I don't have transportation, but now we got an Uber if you live here in the city of Atlanta. But in most cities, wherever you are, you've got some transportation to get to the house of the Lord. To think about God's house and the blessings that you have received from this man who's responsible for leading you from earth to heaven, because that's his job. His main job is to lead you from earth to heaven. He is the shepherd over your soul. So, what is it that you can do to relieve some of the stressors? No, he may not be doing it actually, but he's responsible for everything that gets done.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

All right. So, Sister Way, I wanted to ask you a question about when you pray for pastors, in even the ministry that you said that you have where you go around to churches, I want you to first talk about what you do when you do that, when you go around to the different churches, the steps that you take, and then I want you to talk about when you when you get ready to pray for pastors, how you approach it. Do you have like a structured list? Are you just led by the Holy Spirit? Um how do you how do you do what you do?

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Well, when I the first thing I do, I call up a pastor and ask him, I say, can I come and speak to your congregation about praying for you? And the ones that have said yes, you know, we've got one that kind of evaded the issue. You know, sometimes pastors have so many things before them that they can't clearly think about what's good and what's bad. But the ones that have received it, first of all, I have a form that I fill out because I ask the people, do you pray for your pastor? And of course, everybody's gonna say yes. But then I always come back with a little education. What do you pray? What you know, and this is me speaking to the congregation when I'm there. I have them to fill the form out. Everybody has said yes. I pray for my pastor. Then when I come back and probe a little deeper into the issue, what do you pray? How do you pray? Some people can come up with some specifics, but most of the people, most of the prayer that the pastor gets is they get on their knees or wherever they pray, they give the Lord a laundry list of their own problems, and at the end of that, usually say, now bless the pastor. That is not praying for him, that is mentioning him. You need a time that you set aside and say, I'm gonna bring my pastor into the holy place. I'm gonna sit here five minutes and concentrate on what he might need this time of the day. That's praying for him. You got to enter in. You can't just mention his name. You need to enter into the holy place to pray for him. Bring him into the Lord so that the Lord can send dispatch angels to help him. Because that's what God will do if you will simply sit and enter into the holy place and ask the Lord, Lord, wherever he is at this time of the day, the troubles that he's having, will you just have mercy upon him? Will you just be with him? Will you send? I can't go, Lord, but will you send men and women and children along beside him to help him with whatever he's doing at this hour of the day? Do you know the Lord will hear you and God will send somebody because your prayers are effective? His scripture said so. He said, the effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous availeth much. And here and what the congregation is not realizing, God is not going to do anything apart from our prayers. When he said the plan of salvation is finished, he meaning he's not going to interfere in the daily activities of men. In other words, he left his church here, as he told us over in the book of Ezekiel, the 22nd, chapter 22 and 30. He said, I need a man to stand in the gap for the land. Now, these people and these priests, and everybody was sinning, the people were sinning. God could have wiped them out, God could have made them do right if that was his character, but he doesn't do that. He wants you to choose to do right. But you know what he said? I need somebody down there to pray for those people. I need so he's I want somebody down, and if we don't pray, things that should not happen will happen. And things that shouldn't happen, we it will happen. We need to get an attitude that our prayers are important. They are important to God, every one of them.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Before you go, remember this prayer doesn't have to be long to be powerful. You can pray while you're riding to work or doing your lunch break, even while you're in the shower. 1 Thessalonians, the fifth chapter in the 17th verse, reminds us to pray without ceasing. That means weaving prayer into every part of life. And while you're lifting up your needs to God, take a moment to pray for your pastor too. They carry more than most will ever know. And your intercession matters. I'm Elder Audrey Dowling, and I'll meet you back here next time, ready to explore this topic of praying for and uplifting the ones who lead. Until then, keep praying and keep believing.