There is even a special 24 hour conference call prayer line.

Ps 122:6-7: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels.”

(Image via CrunchBase)

Ireland: Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of Ireland’s Roman Catholics, has urged social network users to start sending daily prayers by text, Twitter or e-mail.

The Irish Archbishop told his flock on Ireland:

"Make someone the gift of a prayer through text, twitter or e-mail every day.

"Such a sea of prayer is sure to strengthen our sense of solidarity with one another and remind those who receive them that others really do care."

This is really a great idea! flooding the Net with prayers really does get people to using the media in the best possible way.

Cry Out America!

Every State, Every County, Every Heart
On Thursday, September 11th 2008 at Noon local time, people will be praying and crying out to God for a new Awakening in America!
To find out if there is a Coordinator for your county, please click here, then click on your state and use the drop down box to find your county. If there is not a Coordinator for your county, please go to your courthouse at Noon on 9/11 and pray there for a new Christ Awakening in our nation.

Join the Alliance

Over 325 denominations, organizations and local churches have partnered with the Awakening America Alliance thus far. They all believe that we must pursue a new Christ Awakening in our nation to impact our world.
Please consider joining the Alliance today!
Join with others who feel the same burden for America that you do and pray for America today!             *TOP

Many churches already have prayer circles and phone lines in place to accommodate their members and friends who need prayer for various reasons. I believe that blogging platforms provide a unique tool for expanding what the church is already doing and by making it readily available to their members 24/7. Not only that, it could become an outreach ministry for the church by making the prayer line public on the World Wide Web.

Here are examples of very simple prayer lines using a blogging program:

PRAYER Line and Prayers Online

Set UP:

Both of the examples use a regular blogging program (WordPress). To set up the prayer line, you can put an email address to send prayer requests or praise reports to. Also, for those who know a little HTML you could even change the ‘comment’ line to ‘Prayer Requests’ and let visitors type in their requests. Note: If you use the ‘comment’ line you should probably set the comment program to be ‘moderated’ before a prayer request is published in order to weed out any spam or inappropriate language.

Administration:

The good news is that it will only take a couple of people to administrate and moderate the prayer blog. However, in order to be successful it really should be viewed as a ministry and at least several people need to commit wholeheartedly to the project. The minimum requirement is a computer and online service with only a minimal understanding of the blogging program. One person probably should be in charge of the site with several others to take turns moderating and posting the requests.

Prayer Team:

Most churches already have some kind of prayer team in place to be intercessors for their church, ministries, and people. In many ways this is a real ministry calling that most of the time is hidden from view and not publicly recognized. Pastors however usually know, appreciate, and understand the importance of intercessors and prayer warriors to the ongoing success of a church and ministry.

A regular group of people called to the prayer ministry should be signed up and assigned to pray for the requests that come in to the prayer line. Access to a computer and online service is needed of course.

Private, Public, or Both?:

Private: A blogging program could be used for posting internal prayer requests that can be accessed privately by those involved in the prayer ministry. It could make the prayer requests available quickly, timely, and 24/7. It could save a lot of time over the current phone circle used by many churches.

Most blogging programs make it possible to publish private blogs that can be viewed only by those with the proper password. There are always some requests that need to be kept private and confidential. Here is a free site for setting up secure private prayer blogs: Keep and Share

Public: A public prayer line could be set up on the regular church website or a link could be posted to the prayer line blog. If the prayer line is published publicly on a blog, it becomes available to anyone who is searching on the internet for a prayer line. The prayer line then can potentially become an outreach ministry for the church.

Both: Some blogging programs make it possible to publish both public postings that can be viewed by all, and private pages or posts that can be viewed only by those on the authorized list and with a password. Better yet, it is probably best to maintain two sites, one for prayer requests that can be shared publicly and one for the requests that need to be kept confidential. There is always the chance if you have one site that the moderators will forget to check the ‘Private’ box and confidential requests would then be available for all to see.

Cost:

Zero, Zip, Nada. Free blogs with the needed programming and hosting is available from www.blogger.com and from www.wordpress.com . Both of the simple prayer lines given as examples are WordPress blogs.

Promotion:

First of all, promotion of the site begins with mention in the church bulletin or when announcements are given. Church members could be encouraged to view the site and pray for the requests. The Church could also list specific requests for prayer for the on going ministry at the church or for youth groups or missionaries that have been sent out. It could be a regular site that members visit during their prayer times.

The usual blog promotions could also be applied to the prayer line. First of all, you should choose a name for your site that includes ‘prayer line’ or ‘prayers Online’ or something similar for immediate search engine identification. Next, you should register it with all the major search engines, and directories. This would be an ongoing project to raise the visibility and the traffic to the prayer site from the World Wide Web. Hit counters and site meters should be included to mark the progress and success of the site, and to see where all the visitors are coming from.

Finally, encourage everyone in the congregation with a blog to link to the prayer line, this would give the site immediate viability and increase the search engine page ranking for your site. If you follow through with these few suggestions, your site will soon show up on the first couple of pages when you ‘Google‘ prayer line.             *Top