Get Started:

Has God’s heart for the nations become your heart? Wishing you could do something significant in behalf of one of the 6700 unreached people groups in the world? You can. Start a prayer network to intercede on behalf of a people group. Prayer will soon result in vision and collaboration!

To start the network you’ll need to answer some questions. The Pray4Tunisia partnership is used as an example of how you might answer the questions.

    1. WHAT IS THE OBJECTIVE OF THE PRAYER NETWORK?

      The Pray4Tunisia network promotes “strategic prayer for a church multiplication movement”

    2. WHAT PRAYER WILL HELP ACCOMPLISH THOSE OBJECTIVES?

      The Pray4Tunisia network prays about issues that David Garrison’s research indicates have been extremely strategic in past church multiplication movements

    3. WHAT’S A SHORT, DESCRIPTIVE, MEMORABLE NAME FOR THE NETWORK?

      Pray4Tunisia

    4. WILL YOU NEED TO CONTROL CONTENT?

      Pray4Tunisia promotes prayer for an Islamic nation where Christians have been persecuted for years. Because it’s virtually impossible to make sure that a large network will uniformly apply good security protocol, we decided to allow open access to the network but to rigorously control what information is shared. Details that would endanger believers are left out.

    5. WHAT TOOLS WILL HELP YOUR NETWORK?
  • An option for a free email address is to sign up for an account at Gmail
  • Make the email address descriptive (perhaps [email protected]) so that it’s not treated as spam

Mailchimp

  • View Pricing
  • An email/marketing/automation company that allows you to send newsletters, emails, and more to a mass number of people
  • Allows subscribers to add/remove themselves from mailing lists
  • You can schedule when your emails will be sent
  • It can be configured to automatically post the content of your emails to Facebook and/or Twitter once you have all those accounts made
  • Has great/free customer service
  • Has some great templates to let you customize the looks of your emails

Here is an example of how Pray4Tunisia is currently using Mailchimp to send out daily prayer points:

Example Mailchimp email

There are many options out there. We recommend starting with one platform. Later, you may discover another platform works better or adding a second platform could be beneficial. Until then, try out the best platform for your context and target audience.

  • Facebook Page
    • You create a Facebook page right from your own account. No one except Facebook and your page’s admins would be able to see who is behind the page.
      • Benefits:
        • You can easily monitor your page and receive notifications right from your own Facebook account
        • You can easily switch from your personal Facebook to your page without having to log in and out all the time
        • You can comment, like, and reply to messages as the page
        • You can invite other volunteers to have a role on the Facebook page with various permission levels
      • Cons:
        • If your prayer network is focused on a high risk area and you live in that area, you may want to consider keeping your personal account completely separate. Again, only Facebook and those you invite to partner with you as admin/users on the page can see your personal account name.
Pray4Tunisia's Facebook Page

You don’t need a website to get a network started. Some groups use their Facebook page as their main landing page. However, if you are somewhat tech-savy and/or have the desire to learn, go for it!

Types of Website Builders:

Important Notes:

  • Be sure to add a SSL certificate (This makes the site have https:// in the URL).
  • BACK UP YOUR SITE WEEKLY!! (Recommend: “Updraft Plus“)
  • Connect site to email delivery service (e.g., Mailchimp).
  • Limit access to admin portion of site. Not everyone on your team needs to be an Admin.
  • Keep it simple and clean. The user should be quickly be able to know what to do on each page.
  • Use stock photos and/or take high quality photos to use on each page.
Pray4Tunisia's Homepage

Pray4Tunisia creates 365 new prayer points throughout every year. This is because we value that our prayer requests reflect current events, stories, and prayer needs.

Here are some ideas for creating an ongoing system for creating and organizing your prayer points:

  • Brainstorming prayer point ideas
    • Create an ongoing brainstorm and content meeting for fresh ideas
    • Ask volunteers and church planters to submit prayer point ideas via an online form
    • Download Pray4Tunisia’s 365 example prayer points for ideas
    • Seek ideas for your content and network by studying what other networks are doing
  • Writing prayer points
    • Ensure that your prayer points will not cause anyone harm. Pray4Tunisia does not include real names and photos in any prayer points.
    • Keep your network’s objective and vision in mind when writing prayer points
    • Be concise, about 1-3 lines.
    • Vary content (pictures, maps, stats, testimonies, videos, praises, petitions)
    • Proofread!
  • Organizing prayer points
    • Consider using an online collaborative spreadsheet like Google Sheets to store your prayer requests
      • It automatically saves all changes to the cloud that is reflective for every user
      • You can limit viewing and editing access

Recommendations

  • Choose good passwords for your accounts
    • Recommend using LastPass to organize all of your secure passwords
  • Empower people to not only read the prayers you share, but to share their own via social media like Facebook and Twitter
  • Collect lots and lots of non copyrighted photos of your context!
    • Recruit a photographer to come and capture high quality photos of people interacting, faces, aspects of the culture, important scenery, etc
    • Subscribe to Adobe Stock Photo
    • Use Free photos
    • Store them on Flickr
  • Don’t fill inboxes (1 email per day at the very, very maximum)
  • Consider letting people subscribe to emails without having to share their names if there is a security issue (for example in prayer networks for Islamic people groups)
  • Get a simple/clean logo/image
    • Make sure the logo is also saved as a .png in order to use it on multiple colored backgrounds
  • Consider using prayerguard.net which allows you to create an account for your people group and will automatically generate three short prayer points for each session that your website is visited or for those who sign-up for your emails.
  • Empower people who join to see themselves as prayer mobilizers, too. If you use MailChimp schedule automated emails for them to get a week, 2 weeks, a month, etc. after signing up to give them ideas about how they could engage others.
  • In terms of boosting #s of people who are engaged, it seems strategic to engage groups with the vision (church camps, churches, Sunday school classes, conferences, etc.)
  • Increase your subscriber numbers by using Google Adwords and/or Facebook Ads
    • Remember, in today’s media world quality over quantity is what you want to strive for. You can have thousands of fans on Facebook and subscribers on Mailchimp, but if they aren’t praying and engaging with your content, this could hurt your chances of making into Facebook Newsfeed and E-mail inboxes. Focus these ads on those who are similar to your most engaged audience.
  • Determine what search words you want to point to your network, do that search, then contact the websites that appear and ask them to add a link to your website/blog.
  •  Overlay your daily prayer points on photos using a program like Canva
  • Some videos, compelling pics, rubber bracelets, attractive prayer cards, etc. along the way would be a great idea, too. Don’t let what you can’t do (now) stop what you can, though!
  • Get someone who is gifted to write and record prayer songs that churches could use.
  • Invite others to champion translating your network and prayer points into other languages.

Pray4Tunisia has helped launch over a dozen other prayer networks.