William Passavant (1821-1894) was walking down Fifth Avenue in Pittsburgh when he was met by a Presbyterian minister, “Brother Passavant, you must come with me to a noonday prayer meeting! We are having the most glorious meetings! Come along and enjoy them!” William, a Lutheran pastor, smiled and said, “Really, you must excuse me. I have so many sick Presbyterians at the hospital that it keeps me busy looking after them.” It was a merited rebuke to the oldest, richest church in Western Pennsylvania which had not a single hospital or orphanage in the region. While William Passavant was no stranger to prayer meetings, he also believed it was necessary to act on our prayers. As he said in a sermon, “The gospel must be lived as well as told, or men will disregard it as an idle dream.” One biographer observed that wherever William saw a need, he tried to meet it. He started homes for children left orphaned by the Civil War and a school for children of freed slaves. He originated hospitals in Pittsburgh and Milwaukee in response to the scourge of deadly epidemics. When he was still a young man, publishing a Lutheran newspaper in Baltimore, he received an urgent appeal to lead a floundering Lutheran church in Pittsburgh. He wrestled with the decision of whether to accept the call to this church “in the west.” His journal provides a window into his ambivalence as evidenced by mailing his acceptance letter and then promptly retrieving it from the post office. Despite his ambivalence, God wonderfully answered his journal prayer:
William Passavant
O God, my God, into Thy arms I throw myself. In this most important transaction of my life, let me not be guided by any other than Thy merciful hand. O, Thou guide of my youth, lead me in the way I should go. Let me hear Thy voice saying, “This is the way, walk ye in it.” I fear my own will or wish may bias my mind in this matter, though I do not even know what my preferences are. Lord, let me not deceive myself. Make me willing to do Thy will and let me know what Thy will concerning me is. For Jesus the Redeemer’s sake. Amen.
George Henry Gerberding, The Life and Times of William Passavant.
Rev. Dr. Peter James served 42 years as the senior of Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, VA — 21 years in the 20th century and 21 years in the 21st century. He retired in 2021 and now serves as Pastor-in-Residence at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Even as a pastor, prayer came slowly to Pete. Read Pete’s story.