Sunday, October 30, 2005

Put-and-Take Prayers

No; nothing to do with shooting pheasants.

My congregation's worship committee was also retreating this past week, and one of the ideas they brought back to our church was this: Beginning next week, we'll be placing a prayer request slip in every bulletin. People can fill out a prayer for themselves or others, in a completely anonymous manner. At the end of the service these slips will go into a basket. As people leave, they may take a prayer request out of the basket. If they do, their job, for the next week, becomes praying for that particular person or situation. And this is going to be an ongoing, all-hands-on-deck project from now on.

Another God thing happening in our parish. Someone upstairs must love us.

8 comments:

Charlotte said...

That's a good idea. I will see about putting this in the ears of our Healing Prayer/Worship Committee people.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant idea! I'll see what I can get my church to do.

If you could take my name out of the basket right now - I'm going into hospital today for major surgery on my back. I'm scared!

Karen Sapio said...

That is a good idea. The only thing I'd maybe add would be a "model" prayer as many folks like the idea of intercessory prayer, but don't have a good notion of how to get started.

Jody Harrington said...

This is a good idea. I'd love to hear how you think it is working after a couple of months. Purechristianithink's idea of providing a "how-to" intercessory prayer as a starter is helpful. If you do that, please post it for us.

Cathy said...

Question:

What happens to the slips of paper that get left in the basket?

Cathy

LutheranChik said...

Re the sample prayer: I haven't gotten my hands on the actual slips we're using, but I suspect they will have some sort of help on them: "I'll get back to you.";-)

Cathy: That's a good question. But I suspect we'll have some double- or triple-dippers into the basket.

Kathryn said...

EXCELLENT thought....We have a prayer board, but it is currently underused, and there seems to be a tendency to assume that its for the clergy to do th praying. I love this...will speak to my vicar asap. Thank you :-)

Beautiful Feet said...

You is so cool! You have reminded me to add prayer requests to my blog. I love yours. I'll link to you if you link to me....... http://beautifulfeetstclements.blogspot.com
and
www.beautifulfeet.ca

-Vanessa,
an Anglican (Episcopalian to you) in Toronto