Handling prayer requests from church members can be overwhelming at times, especially if you’re leading a large congregation. There are just so many! As much as possible, we try to cater to everyone’s requests immediately, but that isn’t easy. Every church should have a strategy in place for keeping up with prayer requests. A discussion regarding this issue recently took place on our Facebook group.
The Question:
Deanna Harrison Glass posted this question:
“How do you all handle prayer requests sent/called into the church office? We currently have a prayer request/announcement email that goes out every day at least once, and if someone calls after the daily one is sent, then a separate email is sent with the exact quote from the person who called. We are not a small church, and it happens very often. So what’s the procedure for that for all of your churches?”
Answers:
“Opt-in prayer chain (Google group has worked best for us, but just a list of emails works also) managed by a volunteer.” – Renn Serna
“Every prayer request comes into our database, and at 8 am on Monday the system collates all the prayer requests and puts them in an email ready to send out to the prayer team (about 20 people). Sometimes on Monday a volunteer opens the email, adds any paper/phone requests into the email… then they hit send. If they don’t for whatever reason, the email sends itself at the end of the day on Monday.” – Cade Embery
“We have a closed Facebook group dedicated to prayer. People from the congregation can request to join and then pray for one another’s requests. We also have prayer teams available after each service to pray with people in person. People can request in-person prayer by church elders, and that usually occurs on a Sunday. We were having a similar issue to what you’re experiencing, and it just became a crazy administrative nightmare, which is why we switched to the Facebook group as our primary go-to spot for prayer.” – Nichole Perreault
“We limit our prayer requests to members/attendees and their immediate family. If someone calls with a request outside that, I (as the person who typically fields the call/email) will pray with them right then and explain that we limit it to keep from overwhelming people with requests. We also encourage them to share those other requests with their small group or bible study.” – Jessie Reuter-Yount
Conclusion
Prayer is an essential part of Christian leadership. People need prayer, and they have a lot of specific requests. It can be a lot to keep track of. Using the advice featured above, hopefully you can develop an effective strategy for organizing and attending to people’s prayer needs.
