What is a Prayer and Fasting Team?

At our church we have a team of over 100 people who've committed to fast and pray once a week, or one day a month specifically for the purpose of praying for our church. We provide this team of prayer partners with a private prayer list. The list is compiled by collecting prayer requests from church staff members. Staff share their requests both for their personal lives and for their areas of ministry. At the first of the list we include churchwide annual goals (what we update monthly). Each month we update our requests and list praises for the answered prayers we've experienced. 

In order for you to capture the spirit of this vital ministry, let me share the introduction I wrote for the first private prayer list we sent to our team members this past January 2022: 

Happy New Year! If you have just now joined our praying and fasting team, WELCOME! We are so glad you are here. This list is for your personal use as you fast and pray a day a week, or a day this month.

The best way to use this list is to read through the requests and invite the Holy Spirit to allow one or more of them to capture your heart. Connect with the pastor or staff member who submitted that request and let them know you are praying specifically for them. 

As you read the Bible, watch for Scripture verse that speak specifically to these requests and jot the reference beside the request, then then send it to the person asking for prayer.

Then, each month, be sure to read through the list looking for how God is hearing answering you when you pray. In 2021 I printed these lists and kept them in a notebook. I could flip back through the lists and see how God was answering our prayers. 

We baptized more in 2021 than any other year in the life of our church.

We collected more money in 2021 than we even asked for! 

There were many ways that God worked in our church and in our individual lives--I wish you could've been in the courtroom the day our great nephews were adopted.

We trust you and hold you in great confidence as members of this team privy to this private list. Thank you for praying and fasting faithfully and for standing in the gap for all that God is doing in and through our church.

We are at the end of 2022, and I am once again compiling a CELEBRATION LIST so that our prayer partners can celebrate just what happens when we pray.

In January we will once again recruit church members to join the prayer and fasting team by promoting the opportunity on Sunday mornings, through our social media accounts, and in our small groups. Our goal is to recruit 365 people and have someone praying and fasting over our specific needs every day of the year.

Each month we update our list and send it via email to our team members. With every list I give a quick video word of encouragement. You can see all of these videos on my YouTube channel, the one attached to this blog post is a sample of these videos. Prayer Team Video Update

This year we are going to make these improvements to this ministry:

1. We are going to host quarterly get togethers for members of the team. At these gatherings we will share testimonies of answered prayer, encourage our prayer partners by sharing a lesson on prayer, and we will worship and pray together.

2. On the monthly videos I will teach a quick lesson on prayer to add a bit of UMPH to the persevering practice.

3. We are going to know who is praying when, and see if we can pass a "baton" from partner to partner. This will simply be the exchange of a text message from one partner to another as their day ends and the next person's day begins. (I'll keep you posted on how this works.) 

There you have it! I'll be glad to answer any questions you might have about this exciting and powerful ministry, feel free to post your questions in the comments section, or reach out to me personally through the "contact us" page of our website.

All I know is that God does great and mighty things when we get the people praying.