Prayer Is The Engine | Doug Preston Pt. 2

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Chuck Hollandbeck: Well, welcome back to the circuit connecting 46 counties of Indiana South to the heart of the mission. Last time we introduced our three lanes and today we're looking at what actually powers those lanes. And so we are back with our district superintendent, the one, the only Doug Preston. And so we're excited to just dive into prayer. This is, I think, one of the most important things in any leader, any minister's life.

Indiana South Wesleyan District AI: from the banks of the Ohio River to the rolling hills of Brown County and the vast plains of the South. This is the circuit We are more than just a map. We are a movement connecting the 46 counties of Indiana South to one singular mission. Whether we are fueling health in our pews, breathing life into revitalization or pioneering the next great multiplication, we are moving together. So roll down the windows, grab your coffee. ⁓

Chuck Hollandbeck: And so Doug, when you need to get alone with do you have a specific war room a specific place, a chair, a trail, ⁓ a certain ⁓ stretch ⁓ of place you drive maybe?

Indiana South Wesleyan District AI: and let's hit the road. You're on the circuit your host is starting the engine right now. ⁓

Doug Preston: Yeah. I do most of my praying, setting at our dining room table. I know that's a little odd for most people. And I think what the reason why when I first came back to Christ, I was an over the road truck driver. And so I would set at the steering wheel and do my devotions and my pray, you know, every night or every day. And so I like that setting up position and it keeps me focused. And so I sat at our dining room table and I have my spot that I go to every day. And that's where I do my devotions. That's where I the Bible. That's where I pray. And lots of times if during the day I just got to have that extra season of prayer, I go back there. It's just like it's my spot, so to speak. I love the idea of having a war room based on that one movie, you know. But I do know that my comfort spot, the reason I think it's this way for me is because lots of times when I'm praying, I kind of visualize God sitting right there with me. And so I can talk.

Chuck Hollandbeck: why is prayer really the step on our district right now? Do you find it's because of life change? What makes prayer the guiding, moving thing for our

Doug Preston: Well, I believe we can have a lot of good strategy. think there's intellectual people that can come up with good plans. But I early in my ministry, even really my Christian walk, I knew I had to depend on God. And I think prayer for me is more for myself than it is for God. And I think for our district is more for us. We need to depend on God, not our own intellect. We can hire good orators, ⁓ can draw a crowd, but will the Holy Spirit be there? And I believe the Holy Spirit and the anointing only comes by prayer. I believe that if a church is unhealthy, the first thing that they need to correct is their prayer line. I think prayer is probably more important than reading the Bible, actually. I don't know that you can pray properly if you don't read, but I think God wants a relationship with us.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Yeah. Do you think a lot of pastors struggle with that prayer aspect? How do you differ from ministry and your personal prayer life? Because I know for me as a pastor, I find myself mixing all that together. And so how do you separate those two things?

Doug Preston: Well, I wish I had the secret sauce and I don't. You know, that's it's a I think it's an individual thing. And I think it's something that we always have to be working on. It's a constant reminder of ourselves. For me, what I've done in my life and my wife also, we've kind of done this together. We have things that we like. have my phone set every eight o'clock every morning. It gives me a prayer. Lots of times I've already got my prayer in, but I want to make sure that I have to click it off, you know, so that have I prayed? If I've got too busy or something's happened, it's reminder for me to pray. I think we, you know, and I'm just as guilty. So please, I don't want you to feel like I've got it all together. I know intellectually that I need to pray first. I know that. Without a doubt, I know I have to pray first. But in my own humanness,

Chuck Hollandbeck: Yeah.

Doug Preston: I want to do first and pray second. And so it's a constant battle for me to to to pray first. And I think that ⁓ knows our personality. So if we do work this out with our own with ⁓ fear and trembling, like the Bible tells us to work our own salvation out with. And I think prayer life is part of that whole concept of salvation. think there's that tension that we're that God understands. But without a doubt, if Jesus needed to pray, I need to pray. I need to pray. And I tell you that I feel like as a kid, my mom, I really would you that my mom is a prayer warrior, probably the last 15, 20 years she was alive. But as a kid, I was raised in a Christian home and we had ⁓ a family altar night. And we prayed as a family and we didn't go to bed. But then my mom always prayed separately from that. Now, I don't know if my dad did or not. I don't know. But my mom, we'd do family altar. We called family altar. She'd put us to bed. And then I would hear my mom praying beside a red chair in the living room every night before she'd go to bed. So and I go back and say, man, if my mom needed that, I really need that. so as a small child, I knew prayer was important. I would hear my mom cry. I would hear my mom tell God how much she loved him. And ⁓ you tell that there was a relationship there that was more than just a duty. She longed to have that prayer time. And so I think when we really look at it as relational, it's a little bit easier for us to pray.

Chuck Hollandbeck: that kind of leads me to ⁓ next thing because honestly you have seen churches like flip the script, so say. So you've seen them go from decline to growth. You've actually seen churches go from growth to decline. Is there a direct link between a praying leadership team and a healthy church, would you say?

Doug Preston: I do. I believe it with all my heart. I can only talk to you about my own ministry, but I believe that everything that we do within the church needs to become intentional and it needs to be intentional, Holy Spirit driven. And so even in board meetings and even with our DBA board meetings right now, we've had some wonderful times of the Holy Spirit showing up because ⁓

Chuck Hollandbeck: Yeah.

Doug Preston: We pray and we do devotions first. And to me, that's the most important part of the meeting. And it's just not a checkbox. I mean, it's easy to do that. We set an agenda and okay for the board, we're going to have prayer and devotion. Okay, we do it really quick because we want to hurry and get done because we've got to work on the agenda, right? But I really want to have a posture that says we pray first. If we never get to the agenda, that's okay. God will take care of that. If my heart's right, if my believers, my leadership is right, God's going to take care of the collar, the paint on the wall. He's going to take care of whether we have pews or our chairs. He's going to take care about whether we use contemporary music or we do the hymns, we're an inward church or an outreach church. When we get connected to God, He fixes all those things.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Yeah.

Doug Preston: So is an agenda important? Absolutely. But it needs to be not just an agenda line item, we need to be serious about it. And so as a leader, you have to lead your people into that because that's not what we're used to. I'm doing a prayer retreat at Lifeline next weekend. When I was there, we did prayer retreats and Nathan is continuing it and I appreciate that. I've done several prayer retreats for the churches. What's so awkward is people don't know how to pray for 15 minutes. and it scares them to death. And quietness sometimes is an awkwardness, but quietness is when Jesus or God speaks through my heart or the Holy Spirit. know, ⁓ sometimes I just need to be quiet in prayer. So I do believe that as we talk about the engine of, know, what we're doing, man, that fire comes from prayer. And as just talking about it, I almost feel guilty because I don't pray enough. You know, because I think there's more times that I could really pray. And and so what I fight against is I pray before every meal. But honestly, let's just be truthful with you and I. Just be truthful. That's a habit more than it is sincere.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Right.

Doug Preston: Okay? And so for not awful careful, our devotional life becomes a habit also. It's a duty. It's a checklist. So I have to purposely slow down and say, God, I want this next 30 minutes. I want this next 10 minutes. Whatever it is, I want it to be to you and I. don't want distractions. Now, if that's for me individually, why would I not want to lead my church that way also? So I believe in prayer so much that we did away with Sunday school and started prayer time. And I just talked to Nathan a couple of weeks ago and he says they're running about 40 or 50 people on Sunday mornings now coming in an hour early to church to pray.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Yes. Mm. ⁓

Doug Preston: But they're getting ready to go to two services because of growth. Why do you think they're growing? Because, you know, it's easy for you and I to sit here and talk. Now, if God would sit down and have a conversation with me every day, I think it'd be a lot easier.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Yeah. Yeah.

Doug Preston: But here's the difference between God and you and I. when you and I sit down and talk, we want to tell each other what to do.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Yeah.

Doug Preston: Doug, you would say, Doug, if you only do this, this and this and you can do it. And I'd say, Chuck, if you do this, this, this, but you know what God wants? He wants us to work it out ourselves. And he just gives us those nudges so that it becomes real to us. When you tell me what to do, I'll do it, but I don't believe in it necessarily until it happens. When God tells me what to do, he's already. indwell in my spirit. He's already got my mind right. He's got my spirit right. And can't fail because God's on my side. And so God takes relationship one deeper, a lot deeper than we can. But I think he doesn't speak to us on purpose directly because he wants us to, our faith to grow. He wants us to plod this out. He wants us to be swimming upstream so that we gain strength in.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Have you ever seen a healthy church that doesn't pray like fall? I mean, you you see churches that don't pray and they grow, they don't really develop any disciples, you know, but have you ever seen a healthy church like fall because prayer was taken out completely or just

Doug Preston: see that I see the results of it. ⁓ I think that we're not careful, without prayer will become inward focus. And when I see an inward focus church that I know is a non growing church, but at one time it had to be growing, it wouldn't exist. But lots of times we want to go to churches all the time and they'll say, well, we used to.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Cut.

Doug Preston: We can't live in the past. I ask you, what's God doing for you right now? because my prayers I prayed this morning. Okay, listen, I want you to hear me. The prayers that I said this morning, just do not sustain me tomorrow.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Wow. Yes.

Doug Preston: So take that and put it on the church. Just because I had revival 20 years ago, if I'm not willing to duplicate what caused revival 20 years ago, then why would God give us revival today?

Chuck Hollandbeck: Right. Wow.

Doug Preston: And I believe that God said, two or three are gathered in my name, I will be there. I think he said that on purpose so that we could not get blinded by big crowds, because we can have a big crowd and not be in the center of God's will. So it also gives hope for smaller churches that God can still meet with us. And so as a pastor, I use the altar and I go into churches all the time and there's decoration on the altar. That almost makes me want, I'm almost like Jesus in the temple. I want to go and pull all the flowers off and the vines off and say, you know, what are you guys doing? This is not for decoration. This is not a plant stand. This is where people meet Jesus.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Okay.

Doug Preston: I need to make it easy. I shouldn't have to walk over things to get here. I want to make it easy for them to come and meet Jesus. I've been to a few churches. I've said, I'd like for you to get those decorations off the altar. Because it's telling me you're not using it.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Mm-hmm. Yeah. that of to ⁓ just the different lanes that we're about here. And we're going to kind of jump into these three lanes. is the first lane, revitalization. And so, ⁓ Doug, to the in a turnaround spot, it feels heavy. How should those in a revitalizing church be specifically praying for a church that feels like it's basically on life support?

Doug Preston: Mm-hmm.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Like what are the emergency petitions that they should bring to God when it feels like their church is just like crumbling and it just there's really no air, no hope, no breath coming through.

Doug Preston: I would say the first thing we have to do is to ask God to help our people to fall in love with souls. Because really the reason why we do church in a stuck position is because we like our tradition better than I do your soul. And that's a really, I know, hillbilly way to put it, but that's really what it boils down to. We don't want to admit that. But I want everything to stay status quo, but I want God to bless it. But what I'm really saying is, you know, don't mess with us. Don't mess with the music. Don't mess with anything because that's more important to me than someone coming in and getting saved.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Yeah.

Doug Preston: I'll tell you something I did one time and it was really early in my ministry at Greensburg. We did a block party and we had a bounce house and I noticed a couple over to the side just standing there and I realized that their little girl was in the bounce house. I'll describe to you how they look just so that you understand. I'm not judging them, I'm just telling you how they look. He had a tank top on and a pair of blue jean shorts. that was all frayed, know how you cut blue jeans and they fray around and had a pair of flip-flops on. And she had a kind of a terry cloth, I call it a tube top, I don't know what your proper name is, know, terry cloth thing, kind of skimpy and a pair of cut-off shorts and flip-flops. I went over there and introduced myself to him and told him I was happy that he's been there. And I said, where do you go to church? And he said, we don't go to church. And I said, oh man, we'd love to have you at church. And they said, well, we don't have any clothes to wear to church. And I said, well, come as you are. And they said, you guys don't want us to come to church like this. And she said, I don't even have any shoes with these flip flops. And I said, ma'am, I tell you what, I am not worried about what you wear at church. I want you to hear the gospel. And I started to walk away and I turned back around and I said, you know what, if you guys would come to church tomorrow, I will preach barefoot.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Yeah.

Doug Preston: They were there. And I sat down in a chair on the platform, took my shoes and socks off. I didn't point them out and I rolled my pants up to my knees and that's how I pre.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Wow.

Doug Preston: Here only fall in love souls on our knees. So in churches and revitalization, we have to get a new hunger for souls. And if we do that, it will change the way we think about things. And ⁓ not the whole answer, but I can tell you it will open the curtain to where the light starts shining in. Because you start seeing people getting hungry and hungry and hungry.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Yeah.

Doug Preston: one of the worst things I think a church can do, and I'm going to have a lot of people is going to disagree with me on this, and that's OK, is to take prayer requests. And I'll tell you why. Because it's almost like sending a missionary and I pay my $20 a month so I can send a missionary and I feel good because I sent a missionary, but I'm not willing to go out and buy ways myself. I'll send them out. We have replaced good, honest, before God prayer by a list of people that we have read off in church. But we're praying church. I prayed for Aunt Bertha's ⁓ ingrown toenail. And I prayed for this and that. We go on and on and on. It makes ourselves feel good. And Satan has put scales in our eyes and made us realize that, you know what? My prayer, prayer should not be for my mother-in-law's ingrown toenail. It ought to be her soul. And so I think for established churches that when they get comfortable, it becomes about us. And it comes about us is because we start inwardly speaking instead of outwardly speaking. If I was if I had prayer requests the right way, this is what I would do as a pastor. Now, it'd be hard to do, but I'm just tell you what I would do. I would say the only way I will pray for your ingrown toenail of your friend. is if you bring me their name and tell me whether they're a Christian or not. And if they're not a Christian, then I'm going to pray for their soul first. because that's the most important thing. Only after they're saved will I pray for their ailment. Because here's the bottom line, I go to heaven with cancer. I can't to heaven without Jesus. We establish churches become complacent because they lose their love for the loss. And what happens when you see that though, if you do the bell curve, and I've studied this a lot, be up, up, up, up, and they reached a plateau. That's reason I think it's dangerous for us to set goals. And this continuous improvement process that I try to teach is what I think it needs to be. If I'm running 50, I need to be running 75. If I'm 75, I need to be 100. If I'm 150, let's get to 200. You know, because if I say, man, I just want to get to 150. And I lead that way, when I get to 150, we'll quit. What if I get to 150, now I'm going go play in another church, whatever. But we continue improving. We continue taking the gospel. We never arrive. There's always our neighbor that doesn't know Jesus.

Chuck Hollandbeck: We're going to move on to this final lane, church planting, multiplication, starting new churches. Jesus told us to ask the Lord of the harvest for workers. So how do we shift our prayers? From keep us safe, Lord, to send us out to do new works. ⁓ do we shift our prayers from us to the to the people in our community, the needs, reaching people for the kingdom of God? How do we go from me to we? are they?

Doug Preston: Wow, I can tell you there is a book out that Steve Deneff wrote at College Wesleyan called So Shift is from Me to We. It's a very good book. Everybody ought to read that. It's probably the hardest thing for us as individuals to do. And it's probably one of the hardest things for any organization, not just a church. Let's just think about it. And the reason is because the church or any organization has humans in it. And so whatever problems we have, we bring into the body. OK, so it is really hard for us to go from a me to we because we start justifying, OK, God, I understand, but I deserve this? And the minute we start thinking that way, we have to realize that that's the wrong. It's thinking thinking. I mean, we all do it, but it's still thinking thinking. And so I don't know if I have. the magic sauce again to tell you that how to shift from there, other than I would say that we have to get a multiplication mindset that what I want to do is duplicate myself. And if we do that, then it it transcends up. So if I duplicate myself and I have a small group that I want to duplicate that small group. And then if I have morning worship service, I want to duplicate that morning worship service or multiply, I to multiply it. want to I want to redo this so someone else can have the experience. And so if it's that multiplication mindset is that God, thank you for giving it to me. Now I want to give it away. But I want to teach that person to give it away. And I think that's discipleship. And so how we become multiplication people is by discipling. I take these three and then those three disciples three more and then those six disciples three, it starts growing and it gives us that lane to where we're asking God, I think the prayer should be then is God send me somebody. that I can disciple.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Yeah. Yeah.

Doug Preston: and then multiplication becomes natural.

Chuck Hollandbeck: this leads our final question. We have a couple of minutes here, but Doug, let's talk about the pastor who is faking the fire. Their public prayers are great, right? I'm sure you and I have both done this. we've kind of faked it till we make it kind of thing. ⁓ Their engine, that engine inside though, are just running on fumes. And so the last question I have before we close out here is what is your word of encouragement to the pastors, leaders on our district who feel guilty because they aren't praying like they used to? What would you say to them?

Doug Preston: Well, I think sometimes guilt's a motivator. can be, I think God can use that in a positive way. What I would tell pastors more than anything, don't ⁓ isolate yourself. we have a lot of pastors on their district that isolate themselves. And I think isolation hurts us. And one of the ways it shows up is that probably our own prayer life suffers because of it. So find accountability partner. I think everybody should have an accountability partner. Someone to ask them hard questions. know, we need someone in my, I need someone in my life saying, Doug, how's your devotion life? are you doing? You know, and I have to answer. I ⁓ not only that for my prayer life, but I think I need that accountability for other areas so that can stay a man of integrity. And I need someone I trust, ⁓ but I also need someone loves me enough that they're going to speak truth into me. So I think that, you know, how we, how do we restart our engine? ⁓ I think it goes to the fact first is recognizing that my prayer life's not what it ought to be. And I guess the first step and the second step is saying, okay, Chuck, admitting that to someone and asking forgiveness and then asking for accountability. I'm excited about some of the things that's happening on the district right now. And one of them is the Shepherd's connection. That's the whole purpose that we can have a safe place for pastors to go. I am on purpose, not going to be part of it. I'm going to come and say hi every once in while just to greet everybody, let them know I love them. But I want you guys and gals or the pastors across the district to have a safe place to come.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Yeah

Doug Preston: and carry each other's burdens and some accountability. And I think Mark could do a fantastic job with that. So I'm excited about it. ⁓ I tell you as a pastor, I wish I had that. go to go to our website, go to resources and then click on equip and break two boxes down the box on the right says Shepherd Connection. Click on that. You can fill it out ⁓ and ⁓ we're not worried about the money right now. We're just worried about you and we'll go from there.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Yeah. Awesome. And that's going to be a six week course starting January 27th or the 28th, 27th at six and then the 28th at 10 o'clock a.m.

Doug Preston: Yeah, and then we'll go for six sessions and then this fall we'll redo it

Chuck Hollandbeck: thank you ⁓ for being with and Doug, if there's one thing that you wanna say to the pastors before we sign out for this month February, what would you like to say besides happy Valentine's Day?

Doug Preston: I do want the pastors to know that they're loved and appreciated, and I mean that with all my heart. I ⁓ like we're unique in South. I know that there's not a leader anywhere that loves her people any more than myself and our recent leaders. ⁓ and I'm willing to get in trenches you if you'll let me. I really am. think the pastors that I've been in the trenches with would speak well of that. I don't care if it's carrying shingles to a roof or delivering chairs or helping serve meals or, you know, we've to do a little bit of everything. We're in this together. We are. ⁓ And we don't need to alone. ⁓ And so we're here for you.

Chuck Hollandbeck: Awesome,