From my experience, there are around 200 Bible verses worth memorizing for quick access in any situation throughout the day, every day. One of these is a familiar verse that you likely already know - Philippians 4:6-7.
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Jesus."
Thanksgiving and prayer go together. Since it is Thanksgiving week, and as part of the series on Top 12 ways to use registration and forms, it seemed good to me to share how to most effectively collect, share, and track prayer requests using Churchteams.
Collect prayer requests by creating a prayer request group. Then, like any other registration or form, go to Registration > Settings and customize a simple form with the person's name, email, and mobile number. Set up a keyword like "Pray" for people to text to access the form. And, be sure to add the Prayer Request note type as the completion option. This Knowledge Base Article gives more details. The resulting form looks like this.
Share prayer requests by giving people access to a group with a group view that features Prayer Notes. Leaders of this group will be notified immediately when a prayer note is created. They will be able to pray and respond on the spot if needed.
Or, share by creating a People Listing (with notes) report for Prayer notes entered the last day or week. Then Schedule the report to be emailed to the prayer team leader or even multiple people.
If needed, they can forward the note on to others to join in prayer. This will automate emailing all prayer requests (Notes) that day or date range to the right person or people on a consistent basis. Here's that report.
Track prayer requests by using a group like the one above to see the most recent ones. Be sure to remove people from the group in a timely fashion, otherwise the group gets too full and becomes less useful. You will still be able to see their prayer request on their profile and in reports.
If a prayer team member follows up with the person who made the request, have them add another note summarizing that interaction. Use the "Assign Follow Up To" feature in Notes to match prayer requests to specific prayer team members if you want to make sure this happens.
By using the notes feature to track prayer requests, you can run a report similar to the one above for any date range to see a summary of prayer notes.
You can also see an entire prayer history for a person by going to the Notes section of their profile page and selecting the View All option. If you click on the Note Type header, the system will sort based on Note Type rather than date. Then scroll to Prayer Requests to see the history.
Prayer with thanksgiving is a bedrock value for authentic Christian living. This is a great week to remember that and to reflect on how your church might do an even better job of living out this value.
An amazing thing happens when we pray like this. The peace of God, a peace that transcends understanding. Guards your heart and minds, not in your ability or circumstances, but in Jesus.
May that peace and confidence be yours in abundance this Thanksgiving week.
