Whether it’s for your Sunday school class, Bible study group, or Women’s Ministry Team collecting prayer requests can be a challenge.
Prayer requests can:
- Take too much time
- Leave out those who remain silent
- Allow for over-sharing
Try one of these 6 ways to collect prayer requests to keep your group or your team on task:
1. Pass a notebook around the room. Enlist a helper (and a back-up) to type them up and distribute them via email after your meeting time.
2. Limit prayer requests to personal and immediate family. It is okay to ask for prayer for a neighbor, but train them to make it personal – “Pray our family will know how to ministry to Mr. Jones in his time of need.” Keep in mind this will likely be an on-going training.
3. Call, email, or text your group between meetings to collect the prayer requests and then distribute them at the end of your next meeting on paper, or immediately after via email.
4. Give each group member that opportunity to pray a one-sentence prayer request out loud at the end of your prayer time. This works especially well if the group is seated in a circle. It will take some training and encouragement to get them to just choose one request and limit it to one sentence. Remind them that God knows our unspoken requests as well. Participation should be optional.
5. Have them partner up and share. See my Prayer Tip: Partner Up post for complete details.
6. Use notecards. Give each group member a notecard and ask them to record their name and 2-3 requests. Have them swap cards or place them in a basket and have them draw a notecard before leaving. Their task is to lift those requests up before meeting again.
Your turn to share: How do you handle prayer requests in a group situation?
You may also want to read:
8 Ways to Ramp Up Prayer Before Your Event
8 Prayers for Your Team (Free Printable)
Prayer: Direct vs. Bless
Prayer Tip: Partner Up
I don’t know if this is the place for it. Our women’s Bible Study sends prayer requests via group texts (12 people total) when someone sends a prayer request, everyone responds with praying hands emojis or the word praying and my phone is nonstop pinging. I think sending prayer requests this way is a bad idea as the etiquette is terrible. I try to respond but sometimes its overwhelming when 10-12 prayer requests are being shared. Another example is when a heartfelt emotional prayer request is shared (and it just happened to me), and instead of certain group members responding and encouraging the person, they immediately change the subject and post something trivial, like websites or YouTube videos. This has hurt me and other group members. It has gotten to the point where I now refuse to share any more requests as I guess my hurts and concerns are not important. The same group members get more responses than others leading me to believe there is also favoritism among the group. If you have info. on this, could you point me to the website?
Hi Cory, texting is not my preferred method for sharing prayer requests either. Another option if your group is willing would be to use a social media app like Slack (you can have separate threads for prayer requests, general sharing, etc.) or Group Me. I’ll be talking about sharing prayer requests in an upcoming episode of the Women’s Ministry Toolbox Podcast. I don’t think I’ve compiled all of those ideas and resources in another place besides this post – which I need to update. 🙂 I hope that helps. Praying for wisdom for you!
Dear Lord, I humbly come asking for your help to intercede and touch Alfredos heart,he left Sept 13th and wont talk to me.We did not have any fights.Please Lord bring back home to stay forever with me.Please forgive me if I have sinned.I dont understand what happened.Please guide him back home.Please help us work this out.Lord I care for him so much.I ask this thru Jesus Christ.
Enid, joining with you in prayer. <3
Please join me in prayer for my son, Zachary. He is really sick. He is handicapped and cannot speak for himself. Please Lord, make him well again. In Jesus name, Amen.
Shelia, I am so sorry. Asking God to intercede on your behalf.
Great website!
Can you expand on the idea of “making prayer requests personal?” I agree, and would like to hear more of your thoughts on this.
Thank you!
Nancy
Nancy, great question! It can be easy to come up with a list of things to pray for others – the country, our church, our best friend, etc. We can train them to take those same requests (if desired) and make the request about their role. For example, please pray that I will not be anxious when I watch the news, but that I use that opportunity to pray for our leaders. Their spiritual growth is our focus during Bible study – so any personal prayers relating to the lesson could be a huge encouragement and blessing. Something like, please pray that I remove myself quickly from situations that tempt me to gossip. I hope that helps!
Thank you Cyndee for this website and your invaluable wisdom. I am able to begin a women’s ministry in my church and stumbled upon this site and I’m so grateful to God that I did. I’m grateful for your willingness to share from your experiences and your willingness to share your time to help make other’s successful. Thank you again!
I have taken to heart what you said, that prayer should be number one and I’ have been asking my church and other’s to pray for this ministry. I love your ideas and love how you have given us the steps we need to do things. You are such a blessing to me. Thank you!
Oh, Nydia! Your note made my day! Thank you! <3 Praying God will direct your steps as you begin the new women's ministry in your church! Please let me know if there's anything I can help you with.
Hello I am about to start a womens ministry bible study class and this is exactly what I was looking for thank you. I have a question how can we celebrate answered prayers? thank you
Good question! I should have mentioned that you could share prayer requests and praises – all at the same time. 🙂
I am not sure you still follow this site but I just ran across it so I will add a note. I am new to facilitating a small women’s bible study. There are 10 of us during the day. Women of ages 40-90. Many different nationalities, all English speaking but not all learned as children. All bible believers and share the same loving Savior.
We spend too much time on prayer requests and too much time on each question of our lesson. I discovered your site and am finding it very helpful. I will be trying some of your tips. Thank you.
Jeanie, how exciting and challenging! Check out my post on time: https://womensministrytoolbox.com/tip-15/ I use that method to keep the groups I facilitate on schedule. It may take a bit for your women to adjust, be patient and gentle with them, but given time I think you’ll see a big improvement! Let me know how it goes! 🙂
I need suggestions on how to guide women with prayer request. Our last meeting one lady shared way too much information about the person she was asking how to reach out to. My attempts to suggest sharing in the wrong way was appreciated by this person but then on she went. HELP!!!
Teresa, oh goodness…I think that’s happened to many of us at one time or another.
I would call her and talk to her before your next meeting. Let her know you appreciate her sharing. Gently, let her know that she went into too much detail. Give her some tips on how she could better share next time – ie. not using last names, keeping the details minimal to protect that person’s privacy, even a pat “God knows the details, our group doesn’t need to know them all”.
Be prepared jump in and gently cut her off if it happens again.
You may even want to write up a Code of Conduct and share it with the whole group. I’ve got some tips on what you might want to include here: https://womensministrytoolbox.com/code-of-conduct-for-small-groups/
Praying God will guide your words as you speak to her. I would definitely nip this in the bud!
I hope that helps!
Great ideas on my favorite topic!
Finally found time to browse some of the blogs on the 31 Days link-up, and I am SO grateful to have seen yours! I’m becoming more involved in my church’s women’s ministry and definitely love getting tips on how to help make it run more smoothly and effectively!
Tabitha, I am grateful that you found me! 🙂 So excited to have you as part of the community! Welcome!!