The number 100 came to mind as we brainstormed how we might invite and encourage people to pray for us as we planted a church.

We know that an absolutely essential element to planting a church is to pray.

Our own prayer lives needed to be healthy and vibrant. As a team, we needed to be praying together regularly. Beyond this though, we wanted to mobilise those who were willing to partner with us in prayer. The number 100 came to mind.

If we could get 100 people to be praying for us on a regular basis and upholding our team, our needs and the community we were seeking to bless, in prayer we’d be the best equipped we could be for the spiritual battle that awaited us.

At the time of writing this, we have 63 people who have committed to partnering with us to pray.

We started by:

Asking those on the church team we were part of,

Then we put it on Facebook,

Then we asked the elders (who said in the meeting, ‘sign us all up as a non-negotiable’),

Then we asked our team to invite people to partner with us,

Then we put it on Facebook again,

Then we asked those who felt a drawn to be on team but decided against it,

Then we asked the team again,

Then we made a list of others outside of our city who might want to partner with us,

Then I asked people met at churches I preached at, those I interviewed about church planting and family and other friends,

Then we put it on Facebook again.

What happened I hear you wondering…

The most successful way we found of getting people to sign up was via Facebook, hands down. It outweighed every other allegiance nearly two one. I can’t believe it either! I had always thought that a personal invite between friends far outweighed the Social Media beast, but not so with this.

In fact, we discovered that people who wouldn’t call themselves Christians wanted to partner in prayer with us.

One person who’s spirituality I admire, actually refused to be on our prayer list. This caught me off guard. Many have said they will, and I’m sure by the time we launch they will have signed up.

We used MailChimp’s email list builder to take care of the administration for us. It’s free for under 2,000 list participants and does the job superbly.

I thought it would be the easiest part of the whole process. I thought people would be super eager to join us in prayer, but I am left concerned that perhaps our valuing of prayer in the western church isn’t as white hot as heaven would hope for.

As of May 2017, we now have 110 people partnering with us in prayer.