One of the reasons we created the journal, was to help our congregation pray more specifically and strategically for our church staff, elders and deacons.  We developed a system where every staff member, elder and deacon had a team of seven people praying for them each day. A guide that we created gave each person some specific areas to pray for each day. The result was a core of more than 500 people praying every day for our church. We also applied this guide to prayer for our women's ministry. Links for both are listed below:

• Church Example
• Women's Ministry Example

We also recommend visiting Myprayerteam.com - a great  resource to help each person being covered to keep contact with those praying.

Our church was in transition in singles ministry and we wanted a prayer emphasis for 30 days. We chose a tie-in to McDonalds.  We handed out a reminder card and asked each person to pray for 30 days any time they saw an ad or drove by a McDonalds.  We chose this for several reasons:

• Hopefully, they would be reminded a lot to pray.
• It's a place where singles and doubles are both on the menu.
• McDonalds' slogan, "I'm lovin' it" would be true of our singles ministry.

Gene Appel, lead pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, stresses the importance of prayer working behind the scenes in God Kingdom. Prayer went before the formation of the newly church and throughout history.

Our church was preparing an outreach to our neighborhood and we wanted to give our congregation a reminder to pray for our neighbors one day a week.  As part of our series called "Love Lives Next Door," each attendee received a reflective sticker when they entered. the auditorium encouraging them to pray on recycling day. The three words stood for:


The leadership of the ministry team agrees the idea wasn't necessary conventional but it:

• Ties in to Bill Hybel's message “Walk Across the Room” and witnessing to the his neighbor while taking out his recycling.
• It’s the one time in Chicago that brings us out of our houses and into the streets.
• It ties in with recycling where the old becomes new.
• It’s a visible symbol to each other. (Help fellow attendees identify one another in their neighborhoods.)

The Journey is an interactive prayer experience based on a feature in European medieval cathedrals.  The Journey was introduced in Europe and made available by Campus Crusade for Christ web site. Click on the link to learn more.

At a recent women's retreat, they created  a similar journey as listed above but used the Conversation Starters With God notebook in sections as an emphasis. At each station, the participants read a modified roadmap.