Leading From Our Knees
Eddie Turner

Serving as Lead Pastor at Family Worship Center since March of 2010, Pastor Eddie brings a wealth of experience to the FWC Pastoral Team. A 1980 graduate of Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, Pastor Eddie has 30 plus years of ministry experience including Lead Pastor in Algood, Tennessee for twenty years and District Superintendent for the Tennessee District Assemblies of God for five years. Pastor Eddie is known as a man of prayer and has a passion for Church Growth and Community Outreach. His love for the Word of God shows as he teaches the Word with clarity and knowledge.

Recently while enjoying the company of fellow ministers, the conversation turned to spiritual manifestations in public worship. A younger minister looked at me and asked, “Pastor, in a church service how can you discern the difference between the real move of the Spirit, someone’s exuberant emotional display or even a manifestation of a familiar spirit?”

I am not sure my answer excited or satisfied the young minister. I replied, “it’s fairly simple to tell the difference, when you are intimate with the Holy Spirit in private, it’s easy to recognize Him in public.”

Early in my ministry I was blessed with mentors who burned within my pastoral spiritual formation, the necessity for daily communion with the Lord. I am not referring to a 15 minute lesson I read quickly from a devotional book while I navigate a busy day of pastoral responsibilities. Or even a podcast, of my favorite teacher, who I listen to on the way to a hospital call. I am talking about a daily dedicated season of prayer in which I spend time in the presence of the Lord.

Just getting started in ministry while serving as youth minister in a local church, I learned that every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the same time, our Pastor would go to the old sanctuary which had become the remodeled children’s ministry facility and pray. I would sit outside the door and listen. On many occasions I would sit as long as two hours as our Pastor would worship, petition, intercede, cry and laugh. Sometimes he became so loud I thought the neighbors would hear, at other times his words were so soft that I placed my ear against the door to hear what he was praying. On many occasions he was silent for so long that I thought he had slipped out the side door, but to my amazement when I would crack the door and peak in, he was laying face down just waiting.

I listened intently as he reminded the Lord of His faithfulness in the past, interceded for present church challenges and even proclaimed by faith his dreams and desires for the future. At times he would speak and sing in tongues and then follow it with an interpretation.

Some of the things which he prayed out so inspired me that I just knew the entire congregation needed to hear it, but he hardly ever spoke of those things from the platform. Little did I understand at that time, this principle, that some things must be birthed in the private prayer closet before they can ever be successful in public.

Because of that experience and many others, I locked in on a few principles which have guided my Pastoral ministry for almost 30 years. These principles worked when it was only my wife and I and a handful of others in that small struggling church and they continued to work when the crowds overflowed the parking lots.

1) As a Pastor, my most important assignment every day is to spend some quality time with the Lord. In Mark 3:13-15, we read the account of Jesus calling his disciples into ministry. The very first assignment that He gave them is found in Mark 3:14(NKJV)-“then he appointed twelve that they should be with him…”

Before we go out to teach, preach, heal the sick or do any type of ministry, we have been commanded to “be with Jesus.” Everything we do in ministry flows from our personal relationship with Christ. The more intimate I am with the Holy Spirit, the more effective I become in ministry.

As the Apostle Paul stated to the Church at Corinth, “there are many voices in the world and all have significance…” In an age when so many church leaders are looking for the next successful program and strategy, we must be able to navigate the various voices and hear what the Spirit is saying to our church.

2) My daily time with the Lord must be planned and non-negotiable. Each of us, regardless of church size or ministry assignment, understands the various interruptions that continually bombard our daily schedules. There are very few routine days in Pastoral ministry.

My daily schedule must reflect my planned time with the Lord. If I just “fit Him in between all my activities,” I have demoted His place in my life far below King of Kings.

3) My personal life must reflect a character which exhibits time spent with the Holy of Holies. Over the years, as I have listened to conversations in which some ministers engage, I recognize they are not spending much time with the Holy Spirit, because He doesn’t talk that way.

I have never seen a minister, who has a consistent intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit, cheat, lie, steal or engage in questionable behavior. It is impossible to be intimate with Him and friends with ungodliness.

We tell our children, “we will become who we associate with.” This is also true of adults and even ministers. If we hang around the Holy Spirit we will become more like Him.

Pastor, you become the tallest in the eyes of your people, when you learn to lead from your knees!