Using Facebook to Pray
For many years I have had a kind of prayer system. I usually follow the pattern of the Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13) or I have used the acronym ACTS:
Adoration
Confession
Thanksgiving
Supplication
This has served me well for many, many years.
When it comes time to pray for people (supplication) I have become a person of lists. I now use my computer but before that I had a prayer journal with pages of names and requests. Since the list was long and I didn’t want to just read a list for prayer I broke my list up into different days for different kinds of people. Lately this is my “Schedule”:
Monday: I pray for the ministry leaders in our Fellowship
Tuesday: I pray for the faithful members of our group and for the members of our group that we don’t see each week. (Tuesday night is our Fellowship meeting)
Wednesday: I pray for the partners who support our ministry
Thursday: I pray for people I’m concerned about (struggles, those who don’t yet know Jesus. . . )
Friday and Saturday is more whatever comes to mind
Sunday is for my church and it’s leaders
In addition to this list every day I pray for members of my family and for current events.
I’m not super strict on this but this is what I do more often than not.
If I know of specific prayer requests I pray that for the people I’m praying for. If not I often practice prayer listening and blessing (something I learned from author John White.) In this I say “Father I pray for “John doe” and then I stop talking and listen in silence for God. Sometimes I feel there is something I should pray and do. Other times after some silence I just say “please bless this person and guide them through this day.”
Recently I read a book on prayer called “A praying life” by Paul Miller. One of the things I took away from this book is to write a Bible verse on my prayer sheet for each person – one that I want to pray into this person’s life. This has been fun and I’m in the process of adding it to my prayer time.
Another new thing for me has been Using Facebook to pray for people.
This actually began a few months ago when I was on Facebook and I happened to notice the status update of a student that was at our meeting. She wrote that she was challenged by the ISCA meeting that night and wants to put it into her lie. As I read this I prayed for her. A couple weeks later another student wrote a similar thing and again I took time to prayer for him.
That got me thinking. Maybe I should start doing this more often. Maybe before I pray for a person I should check Facebook to see what’s up in their life. This has opened some amazing doors of prayer.
A few months ago I was praying for my supporters and I went to a supporter’s (and a former student) Facebook page and saw they had a baby. I didn’t know this so I said a prayer of thanks, prayer for the baby by name, and prayed for the family. I also used Facebook to send them a note.
Just a few weeks ago I was on Facebook and saw that a former leader was “in a relationship”. I then went to her boyfriends page to see who he was, discovered that it is a long distance relationship and then prayed for them that God would guide and bless them during this time and that they would remain faithful to His commands and would have discernment to God’s leading.
Even simple things have happened. Last week one of my student leaders lost his phone. I prayed for him (I think he lives by his phone so maybe this isn’t a simple prayer but a crisis).
Sometime ago I was on Facebook and I noticed that a former student had sent me a couple “Requests” for some game he was playing (I don’t remember the game and I don’t really understand these kind of requests- I always say no to this kind of thing). Then I also noticed that he had posted, on the same night, quite a few Facebook MeMe’s. This made me think he sure has a lot of free time. So I prayed for him. That if he was having a difficult time sleeping that God would bless his sleep time. If he was being wasteful of his time that God would help him with his time use (I pray this often for struggling students who seem to be on Facebook a lot). I prayed for his computer usage and time usage. I then sent him a note saying “I prayed for you today – How are things going in your life?” I didn’t hear back so I still pray the same things for him.
The point is Facebook has helped me know some of what’s up in people’s lives and has given me additional ways to pray for my friends. It seems to be a great way to use some of this social networking stuff. So instead of using Facebook to get photos and post announcements (which is what I do most of the time) let’s put it to some spiritual use. Instead of just “liking” things and using Facebook to see what your friends are up to, let’s start using Facebook to pray for each other. Let’s turn Facebook into “Prayer book”.
“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”
Ephesians 3:14-21
