The Fellowship of Neighboring Pastors

Jonathan Edwards on the fact that ministers in an area should spend time together praying and discussing spiritual matters…

It seems to me it would be becoming the circumstances of the present day, if ministers in a neighborhood would often meet together and spend days in fasting and fervent prayer among themselves, earnestly seeking for those extraordinary supplies of divine grace from heaven, that we need at this day: and also if, on their occasional visits one to another, instead of spending away their time in sitting and smoking, and in diverting, or worldly, unprofitable conversation, telling news, and making their remarks on this and the other trifling subject, they would spend their time in praying together, and singing praises, and religious conference. How much do many of the common people shame many of us that are in the work of the ministry in these respects? Surely we do not behave ourselves so much like Christian ministers, and the disciples and ambassadors of Christ, as we ought to do.¹

1. Jonathan Edwards, The Great Awakening, ed. Harry S. Stout and C. C. Goen, Revised Edition., vol. 4, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2009), 507. ↩