EPPJ Helpful Guidelines

Planning your prayer list may seem daunting, but following a simple set of guidelines should make the task easier.

First, you don't need to cram everything into a single prayer request list. You can have multiple prayer lists with different orientations. For instance, you might have one that focuses on missionaries that you support and another for general church-related prayers. There are two extremes: putting too much into a single list on one hand, and dividing things up into too many different prayer lists on the other hand. It may be helpful to start with a single short list and then split it into different ones later.

Second, EPPJ offers a lot of flexibility, but where it shines is in its ability to deliver daily prayer requests each day of the week or month. Rather than including all of your requests into a single day (every day), your prayer warriors will find it easier to pray for one or two different things each day. Another benefit of EPPJ is that people can subscribe to multiple prayer lists and they are likely to abandon a list that contains as many requests each day as all the rest of the lists put together. Focus on one or two requests per day.

Third, since your prayer list is not the only one that people can simultaneously subscribe to, your headings should be something unique. Instead of a heading of "Monday prayers", use something like "Prayer for John Doe" or "Pray for pastor George". At very least you can include the name of your church/organization in the heading to distinguish it from the daily prayer requests from other organizations/missionaries.

Fourth, start small with simple plain-text requests. You can always add images, links, and formatting later and your changes will be automatically applied to everyone who is subscribed to your list. Get people praying first, and enhance things as you have time and interest.

Fifth, decide whether you want a weekly or monthly set of prayers. A weekly set only requires that you come up with seven different prayer requests for your list. If you have a lot of ministries going on at your church, you may easily be able to come up with 31 requests for a monthly set of prayers. However, if you have that many things going on, you may have reason to resort to multiple prayer lists: perhaps one for children's ministries, another one for outreach efforts, and yet another for missionaries. But no matter what, it is probably best to have a general prayer list for your church/organization whether or not you have others. Remember that not all months have 31 days (and February doesn't even have 30). So if you want regular prayer for items on each day of the month, put your less urgent requests on days 30 and 31, because they will be prayed for less often.

Sixth, consider the security of foreign workers that you pray for. Missionaries to some countries may suffer attacks or other problems if their work is publicly exposed. There are three ways to address this:

1. Be vague about where they serve. For instance, if they are in Jordan, only refer to them working in the Middle East. Also be vague about their names. Use only first names or initials. And don't include details that could otherwise make them identifiable (and therefore targets).
2. Password-protect any list that includes details about missionaries and then only give the password to trusted individuals. Also make sure to change the password regularly. However, password protection requires some technical know-how, so this approach will not work for everyone.
3. Don't include the missionary at all if they have their own online prayer list (either personally or through their mission organization).

Finally, before you start to create your actual online list, write it down on scratch paper. It will be easier to edit and organize that way. When you have worked out what you want in your prayer list, you can proceed to use an EPPJ editor to create your list.

Remember that if an urgent issue should happen to come up at any time, you can add that to your online prayer list and it will be quickly distributed to those who subscribe to the list. Urgent issues should not be associated with a day of the week or day of the month so that it shows up every day until it is resolved. Just make sure to update or remove urgent issues when the urgency is over.

Some suggested prayer items to get your creativity jump-started...

People: Pastor(s)/Priest(s), youth leader(s), deacons, elders, Sunday school teachers, worship leaders, minstry directors, missionaries, parishioners. Consider individuals as well as groups. For instance, all deacons instead of specific deacons. Specific things you can pray for on behalf of people:

1. That they would live lives worthy of the gospel.
2. That they would be effective in their ministry.
3. That they would be protected from the evil one and evil people.
4. That they would have strong families.
5. That they would be in good health.
6. That they would walk in the Spirit at all times.

Programs: on-going or special programs, such as children's ministries, food banks, church retreats, special services.

Needs: church financial needs, individuals' health issues, marriages in general in the church, visa issues for foreign workers.

Other issues: As tempting as it may be to include prayer items for your nations' leaders, wars, famines, and distant natural disasters, it is best to resist the urge - unless that is the specific focus of your organization. For instance, if you are a relief organization it makes sense to include prayer items about disasters. But otherwise, if every organization includes the same items on their prayer lists, the user who subscribes to multiple lists will be inundated with the same request over and over. If you wish to have a prayer list for these kinds of things even if they aren't the focus of your organization, you ought to place them on a separate prayer list. Those who don't subscribe to a similar list elsewhere can subscribe to your additional list, but can ignore it if they already subscribe to another list with those items.