Praying for Military Service Persons and Families
While we may have differences of opinion about participating in war, we all agree on the importance of prayer. This idea offers that the congregation will pray for persons serving in the military and their families as a way to reach out with the love of Christ is times of war or military conflict.
This idea was developed by the Sarver (Pa.) Brethren Church. Here's their description of the ministry:
During the Iraqi War, the Sarver
Brethren Church placed a
quarter-page ad in two of our local papers asking people to send us the
names of "Your Soldier" for us to pray for. We titled it "Prayer for Your
Soldier" to make it personal.
We have done this in the past when our military was first sent to Afghanistan,
and we received a good response.
We made it clear in the ad that people do not need to be affiliated with a
church to send us their soldiers names. We also stated that we wanted to be a
support for those who do not have a church or other support network.
We have asked people in the church to sign up to pray. Each person is assigned
an individual soldier or several soldiers, depending on the response we receive.
They could indicate if they wanted to pray for a man or women and whether they
had any preference for the soldier's branch of service. We tried to fill
these requests as much as possible.
This does several things: 1) it makes the prayers far more personal, and 2) if
the person responding to the ad comes to church, they can be introduced to the
person that is praying for their soldier.
We have provided a coupon that they can cut out and mail back to us. It
includes room for specific prayer requests. They can also e-mail the
information to the church.
Pastor Clair Knappenberger
Sarver Brethren Church
Sarver, Pennsylvania
See a proof of one of the newspaper ads.
BEST SUITED FOR: Any Size Congregation
WHAT'S INVOLVED?
 | Ask members of the congregation to sign up to pray for one or more members of the military and their family(ies). |
| Appoint someone to make the assignments. |
| Design an ad and place it in your local newspaper . . . or distribute the information on flyers. |
DO'S AND DON'TS
| DO......encourage your pray-ers to continue praying regularly. |
| DO......consider other ways to minister to the families as well as for the person serving in the war zone. |
| DON'T......get into long debates about the issue of war. The purpose is showing the love of Jesus to people who are in a period of crisis. One does not have to agree with participation in war to be able to pray diligently for someone who is involved in it. |
RESOURCES NEEDED
| Newspaper ad or flyer to hand out . . . or both. |
COST:
| Cost of placing the ad or of printing the flyer. |
Our thanks to Pastor Clair Knappenberger and the Sarver, Pennsylvania, Brethren Church, for submitting this idea.
More Ideas That Work