Maybe you take prayer requests at your Catholic parish, but have you ever considered taking prayer requests online? In our work with we promote clean, simple online giving forms. Today, consider adding just one more field to your giving page – a prayer request form. By asking a donor to share his or her prayer request, you are encouraging them to open up and accept help from God and others, even as they are offering their own financial help to the church. (And if you’re already counting your blessings as a parish, an online request form is the next best step.) An online prayer request form helps remove barriers that might stand in the way of the person making the request. After all, it takes additional time and effort to write your parish secretary an email or call him or her to ask for prayer. But if there’s already a field on the giving page, it’s easy.
Be sure that these prayer requests are regularly given to a prayer team that can take these special intentions to individual or communal prayer. Then reach out to the donors and let them know that there are people carrying their prayer requests to God in their personal prayer. Even better would be to print those prayer requests and have your pastor review them and carry them with him while he celebrates Mass.
By taking prayer requests online, you are doing the most important work a parish can do – praying. John Paul II spent his entire pontificate asking Catholics to make their families and their parishes “schools of prayer.” An online prayer request form can move you one step closer to making that a reality. Promote prayer requests just as much as you promote stewardship – both are an integral part of your parish’s spiritual and communal life.
