Thank you so much.

Marty

 

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 Hi Marty -

Isn’t it fun to see how different ministry ideas work at different churches? 

 

I’m sure you can probably think of a way to have secret prayer sisters!  In our church, we simply had an annual assignment for a prayer partner.

We assigned prayer partners in a different way each year, beginning in August when our women’s ministry groups began. Truthfully we called it something different sometimes — mentors, prayer partners, and several cutsie names!

 

Sometimes, we created a form, inviting ladies to request an assigned prayer partner. We’d have a team of women to attempt to pair the ladies by neighborhood or hobbies.

 

Some years we’d pair an older woman with a younger one. Other years we’d pair women of similar life-stages. 

 

One year we did it through our women’s ministries like this:  As each woman arrived on the first week or two, we’d take a quick snapshot. About the third week, we planned a few minutes for introducing prayer partners. We printed a photo each each woman and attached a magnet to the back of it. Chairs were arranged in two’s for the coffee break, and a photo was placed in each chair. As ladies arrived, they found their photo, sat down and had “coffee” with their new prayer partner. They exchanged photos, and women put their prayer partner’s photo on their refrigerator to remind them to pray. 

 

Our prayer partner assignments did not have lots of rules. We simply asked the women to pray for one another regularly, to chat occasionally at church or women’s ministry, and to meet for lunch at least one time during the next year.  Many women exceeded these requests and became mentors or fast friends. 

 

Everyone loved it! Simple. Meaningful. Worth the effort. Some of my dearest friends were developed because we were assigned to pray for one another.

 

To be honest, we only tried the secret sister thing one time, and determined that we’d prefer to spend the year getting to know someone rather than doing the secret gift thing.  Your church is unique, however, so plan it to fit your group.  The key thing is to encourage Christian friendships!