Memo: Limit --one prayer request per week -- what do you think?

I go to a rather large church -- probably about 800 regular attenders. I got this e-mail about the e-mail prayer chain, and while I understand it, part of me bristled at it. It seems necessary but also wrong. I think I might still be longing for the small church of my youth where I was saved. I loved to be there, because I knew and loved everyone there. There is just such a disconnect in a large church. I realize that partly my fault; I could make more of an effort. Anyway...what are your reactions to these guidelines? It's the second part that made me feel uneasy -- one per week and only for serious things (sounds like..."you'd better be dying before you ask for prayer") and once a month for non-attenders. I don't ask for prayer often, but I did ask them to pray for my husband's cousin's baby who had serious lung problems when he was born. They wouldn't put it on the chain, because "cousin" is too distant of a relation. This cousin was more like a sibling to my husband, but I guess I'm a disturbed that administrative constraints made that an issue at all. I've removed the name of my church and replaced it with XXX.


Guidelines for the XXX Prayer Chain

The Prayer Chain is in place for the following reasons:
- To ask the people of our church for prayer in connection with crisis issues, such as serious illnesses, injuries or deaths of XXX members or their extended families.

- To be an avenue by which the leadership of XXX can make a call to prayer for strategic goals, such as revival or an evangelistic harvest.

- To be a communication tool for posting details of the funeral services of a XXX member or their extended family member(s).

Guidelines for Use of Prayer Chain:
- Because of the size of XXX, the prayer chain can be accessed by members/attendees only. Only that which is requested by a specific member/attendee about their personal concerns will be posted for reasons of privacy.

- Similarly, because of the many prayer requests in a large congregation, we ask that prayer requests be limited to one a week in the most severe situations involving a church member/attendee and one a month when requesting prayer for extended family members outside XXX. Variations to these guidelines may be made by the direction of XXX staff as is needed.

 

Frankly, I think the church is missing the entire point of prayer.

 

I agree with Steve. Either have the chain and allow it to be used by all for things they desire to have prayer for, or do not have it at all. What right does the "leadership" have to decide what is or isn't in need of prayer. Why are they extra special and get to decide that. And by right I mean biblically why do they decide which prayers are brought before the church and which ones are not good enough.

 

Amen

So only those already saved are worthy of prayer? (Assuming the members/attendees are saved) Our church has reached out to the community by being known as place where anyone can call in a prayer request. Yes, it's a human "hassle" at times, but seriously! That's half the point of a church!!!!

Frankly, I think that if a church is too big to handle the most basic church logistics, it either needs to split or swap out for new leadership.

 

Can you just imagine if God had requirements such as this? I don't care how big a church is, if you feel the need to limit prayer requests, how effective are you as a body of believers? This is wrong, biblically un-sound, and just plain discouraging. It makes me sad. God is so much bigger than our human limitations. I keep thinking of Moses holding his arms up and having his brother Aaron hold his arms up when he got tired. What if Moses had said, "this is too much, we're gonna have to cut this short." Or Jesus getting frustrated with His disciples when they fell asleep praying at Gethsemane.

 

This would bother me greatly in a church of any size. The Bible says that we are to pray with and for one another, the Bible does not say pray for one another with only one request per week. Praying for each other is not only something we are told to do, but it is our privilege and honor, and while I may not specifically pray each and every request each and every day, I do lift up my friends in prayer daily, when there is a request posted here on the spot I may not comment, but I pray. When a need is brought to my attention I pray, If I were limited by a one request per week per person I have to say my prayer load would certainly be lighter, but my heart I assure you would be heavier because I know that somewhere a friend would be in need of my prayer but I couldn't give it because of the prayer limit.

 

Ditto.

 

AMEN !!

God wants to hear ALL of it, no matter how many requests it may be... not just one per week. Lord have mercy, I think my blood pressure just spiked at this one

 

Wow! I... well... Just Wow!

 

Wow... uh... do they at least still allow for small groups to have more detailed prayer requests?

 

<sigh> I would find a new church, and I would calmly explain this is why I was leaving. I think that, if this church is too big to pray for everyone's requests, then perhaps it's too big overall.

 

I guess it depends on how the prayer chain is set up. If the prayer chain is like the church I grew up in where one person calls another and so on down the line, I can see where a church that size would have problems. Other than that, I agree with the others that they seem to be missing the point.

Our church is between 500-600 members, I'm not really sure exactly. We have prayer cards in the backs of the chairs for anyone to fill out about anything. We also have a form on the website for prayer. Those requests are put in a book and that book is prayed over as well as the individual prayer requests.

I would feel uncomfortable for sure after reading that email and would be in prayer about bringing my concerns up with the leadership.

 

Thank you everyone. It sounds like my uneasiness would be shared. I am so very cautious about doing or saying anything that has the potential to be divisive. Any issue at church has that potential. I'm not afraid to stand my ground; I just want to make sure that I have ground to stand on and that it's worth defending. So, I tend to mull things over for a long time. That is why I brought this here rather than discuss it with anyone at church.

To answer the question about small groups...the church does not dictate what goes on in the small groups. I think that they are probably thinking that all the "disqualified" prayer requests should go to the small groups. My only problem with that is many do not have a small group. It isn't a simple process to just plug yourself into a small group. It's not like you can just show up to one; you have to be placed in one, or I suppose, invited to one by a member of it.

Oh, and this is an e-mail prayer chain. I don't think they even offer a phone chain.

I'm going to talk to my husband about mentioning this to the leadership.

 

Absolutely!

 

We have a huge church in my area that has over 5,000 members. No exaggeration! The church has multiple pastors, bible studies, youth groups, services, and prayer chains. I do not attend that church because I find it too large and to business like. I am not saying it is, this is what I get out of it. Still, they have a very efficient system for their prayer chain and no requests are turned away.

 

From this passage, the following words stand out: "Don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night." It seems that the 21st century version is "Don't bother us. You've hit your limit for the week."

 

I could not attend a church that I could not go to with ALL my prayer requests

 

Is that what they are saying though?

You can still talk to someone at church and ask them to pray with you. It's just the formal prayer letter.

I think the wording could be better, but the prayer chain could be dozens of pages if every request was listed. How many people would truly pray if there were thousands of requests?

We are free to go to God with all of our requests. The church can't stop that. This is an issue of adminstration. Just like there can't be a special song by every member of the congregation every Sunday, every prayer request can't go on the prayer list.

I guess I'm missing the HUGE issue.

 

I'd be looking for a new church...NOW. If it's too big for such things, they need to find a way to break it down to where it's managable. For example, can there be 8 different prayer chains, each headed up by someone on a prayer team? And then they can divide the congregation by their initial or something, so the A-C's call this person and is put on one chain, and the D-F's call a different person and the request is put on a different chain. No, it's not perfect, but at least everyone will feel their requests are being taken seriously. And then the leaders of the different chains can meet one a week or something to pray about things as a group.

 

I think that's a GREAT solution. But why would you leave the church? Maybe she could make the suggestion? I would not have thought about that particular idea.