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Prayer chains are one of the oldest examples of people “doing church” online. I think it’s safe to say that most American churches these days have some sort of prayer chain going, whether it be an extensive prayer wall like ours or just a basic email list; sharing prayer requests online is a valuable service to your members.

If you’re the one that set up the system for sharing these prayer requests, you my also find yourself responsible for filtering the content and deciding what actually makes it through to your audience. Here are a few of my personal rules to help you get started.

First Things First… Moderate!

If you don’t have a system for moderating content that is automatically displayed or sent to your audience, you really need to stop everything and put something into place. It’s only a matter of time before someone posts a “prayer request” full of hateful words or intentionally foul language (you can never be too careful with tech-savvy Middle School Students…). Save yourself a headache.

Remove Too Much Information

Medical prayer requests are probably the most popular on our prayer wall, and many of these can get way out of hand with too much information and content that is, frankly, just gross. Your members do need to know what kind of surgery is going on and how serious it could be. They don’t need to know that the prep area has come down with a serious fungal rash that is oozing through the bandages… You get the point.

Remove Personal Information in Sensitive Situations

This is my most common reason for moderating a prayer request, as it relates to a core fear that I have about our prayer wall: I fear that people visit it just to get gossip about sickness, divorce and infidelity within our church. Because of this, I edit out a lot of information when it comes to prayer requests about divorce situations, recovery issues, parents/children asking for prayer about the other, etc. Most of the time, the intent of the person submitting the prayer request is benign, but they can be prayed for just as well without the audience knowing who specifically is praying through a divorce, what child is struggling with drugs, etc. Just use some prayerful discretion.

Remove Anything That Would Incite Sin in Others

This one is more of a simple rule of thumb… If you think reading a specific request might arouse someone else to sin in their own heart, change the wording. We’ll get some pretty specific prayer requests relating to pornography, which I’m always careful to reword in a way that wouldn’t cause sexual excitement to a reader with devious intentions. A prayer wall is the last place I want someone to have to keep their guard up.

Delete Manipulative Posts Altogether

As I’ve mentioned before in my posts about moderation, there’s always going to be some goober who uses an open discussion forum to try and “stir the pot.” Whether it’s church politics, trolling or just general his side/her side stuff, this sort of content is completely inappropriate for the Body of Christ and should be treated as such through your prayer wall.

With all of that said, the necessity of moderation should not keep you from starting some sort of prayer chain for your ministry if you don’t already have one. It’s great for generating interests in your online efforts, and it definitely helps the Church to continue ministering to each other throughout the week.

Have any tips of your own? Let us know in the comments below.