I remember the good ole days when we had the church prayer chain.  A request was submitted and then each person called on the phone the next person on the chain to get the prayer team praying.  E-mail pretty well killed that method.  With the prayer engine, the email prayer group has gone the way of the dodo.  One of the key problems with traditional prayer team methods is that unless the team would write out handwritten cards and mail them to people, no one ever really knew if they were being prayed for.  At 44 cents a piece for postage that’s pretty pricey today.  The Prayer Engine is a beautiful solution for the church.  It combines the convenience of the web and social networking with pastoral care.

Here’s how it works.  You get a customizable prayer wall for you website.  The idea is that it looks like a part of your site, not just an add on.  You also get a customizable mobile web app that works on Android and iOS devices.  People can then submit prayer requests.  They can choose to make it public or just available to the prayer team.  Once the prayer goes through a moderation process, it is pushed to the prayer wall.  With the built in RSS functionality of the prayer wall, you can receive prayers in many ways including having prayers pushed out to sites like Twitter.  So with one push of a prayer, the request can end up in many places.  The prayer includes a button titled “I prayed for this.”  Anytime that button is clicked the person who submitted the prayer request get’s notified.  BRILLIANT!  You really should check out their intro video.  This is a fabulous solution for prayer in the church.

The cost is a modest $99.  You’ll need someone with some basic website knowledge to get it setup.  If you are a church planter and building your first site, I’d negotiate the setup into the cost of your site design.