Category Archives: Prayer

Prayer Chains certainly can turn into gossip chains.  The same can be true of prayer groups or prayer partners. For prayer chains to be effective, we must seek to put an end to gossip. Better yet, as another post suggests, we should make efforts to prevent it.

Understand the Serious Nature of Gossip

Let’s call it for what it is. Gossip is a sin, a sign of that we’re walking in our old sin nature, out of fellowship with God (Rom. 1:28-32). It violates God’s law of love (Rom. 13:10).

Hence, God will not be pleased and this sin could render our prayer efforts ineffective. Read Joshua 7 for the account of how one person’s sin brought judgment on the whole camp. Though the sin was not gossip, the principle applies because sin is sin.

Once we understand the serious nature of gossip, then we can better grasp the negative effects it could have on prayer efforts like a prayer chain. God could turn a deaf ear to our prayers (Ps. 66:18).

Deal With It So Gossip Doesn’t Destroy the Effectiveness of our Prayer Chains

If aware of gossip infiltrating the prayer chain, we need to follow biblical principles in confronting the gossipers:

Matt. 18:15 – Start by talking with offenders privately.

Gal. 6:1 – Approach people with the right heart attitude.

Eph. 4:15 – Speak the truth but do so in love.

As a coordinator of a prayer chain, we can’t control what everyone does. We won’t always be aware of gossip through the prayer chain. One of our roles, therefore, is to help others on the prayer chain realize their responsibility in keeping the chain pure.  If someone starts to gossip, they should be encouraged to lovingly confront it.  Remind them of verses like the following:

Do not share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure. (1 Tim. 5:22)

Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.  (Eph. 5:11)

Prayer chains and other strategies of helping the body pray for one another must line up with the holy nature of God.  Deal with contagions like gossip.  Better yet, seek to prevent gossip by the way you develop these prayer efforts.

Check Out: Prayer Resources

The first first Thursday of every May is the annual National Day of Prayer here in the United States.  As of 2011, we will have observed this day for 60 years.

One might ask, however, when looking at the state of this country, what all those years of this prayer campaign have accomplished.  In many ways we are much worse than we were 60 years ago.

Points to Consider Regarding the Benefits of a National Day of Prayer:

1. Our real hope is in the God to whom we pray and not the prayers themselves.  Prayer is merely the means by which we access the throne of grace.  God uses prayer but ultimately it needs to be about HIM and not us.

2. We need more than a day of prayer.  The early church was devoted to prayer (Acts 2:42).  Are we as individuals and churches engaged in a lifestyle of prayer … constantly being aware of the presence of God in our lives and ready to communicate with Him at all times?

The benefit of such a day seems to be that it does draw the focus of people onto praying, those who may not regularly be praying for our country, maybe hardly praying at all.  How can we capture this focus and sustain it?

Ministry Tools Resource Center provides a section on maintaining a prayer ministry which forms the basis of the Prayer Ministry Manual. You’ll also find a page filled with prayer resources.  The National Day of Prayer will come and go but perhaps this training and the additional resources can help you take it beyond.