Review: An app to help you pray

High in the Himalayas, ropes bend along the mountain paths. They are hung with prayer flags: squares and strips of fabric like colourful handkerchiefs hung out to dry. The flags dance, toss their tails, grow ragged over the years, and scatter prayers and blessings to the winds.

Well, PrayerMate is no prayer flag. It won't do the praying for you. It’s not a substitute for prayer; it’s a supplement to prayer. But it has been a great help to me in my prayer life, and it’s a useful resource for churches and ministries too (more on this later).

I used to record prayer points on a slip of paper that became more dog-eared, coffee-stained, and inaccurate as the months went by. Now I can add and change prayer points whenever I want. I pray more regularly and more perseveringly for more people. No saying “I’ll pray for you” and forgetting, or writing my prayer partners’ requests on a scrap of paper and losing it; new prayer points go straight into my phone.

It works like a box of virtual prayer cards filed under various topics on your phone. I have one card, for example, for my family, and another for unbelieving friends. Others prefer to have a card for each individual. You can attach a photo or even an email or PDF file (no more unread prayer letters!) to each card, and specify how often you want to pray for it.

These prayer cards are then organized into categories like ‘friends’ or ‘church’. You can specify how many cards you want in each category daily, as well as the order of the categories. Every day the cards are refreshed, so you pray for every point over time.

Here are a typical day’s prayer cards (more ideas here):

1. Opening prayer: This is a time to give thanks to God. I’ve chosen some of my favourite psalms (e.g. Psalm 23, 46, 61, 63, 84, 103, 121, 130).


2. Words of encouragement: These are Bible passages that have encouraged me recently (e.g. Rom 5:1-11; 2 Cor 4:16-18; Eph 1:3-9; Heb 11:13-16; 1 Pet 5:6-10).


3. Confession: Topics like joy, self-control and other areas I struggle with (inspired by Gal 5:22-23).


4. Biblical prayers: A set of prayers I’ve taken from Paul’s letters to pray for people (e.g. Eph 3:14-19; Phil 1:9-11; Col 1:9-12; 2 Thess 1:11-12).


5. My family: This pops up every day, and it includes prayer points for me, my husband, and our four kids.


6. Topic for the day: Things like extended family, friends, our university ministry, our church, unbelieving friends, people we’ve trained, missionaries, our country, and the world.


7. People in need: For example, people with chronic illness and families who are struggling (a different group and list each weekday).


8. Mission and the world: I subscribe to a daily feed from Barnabus Fund (praying specifically for persecuted Christians) and Operation World. Lots of organizations like CMS have a feed too.


9. Concluding prayer: I’ve taken these from the Bible (e.g. 2 Cor 13:14; Eph 3:20-21; 1 Tim 1:17; Jude 1:24-25).

PrayerMate is also great for sharing prayer points. Small groups can email prayer requests to each other. Larger ministries can publish prayer points in a feed (for a small fee), and anyone who has PrayerMate can subscribe for free.

Our university Christian group now puts daily prayer points into a PrayerMate feed so that students and supporters can pray. The students who’ve installed the app tell us they’re praying heaps more, both for our ministry and in general.

If praying more faithfully is isn’t an argument for installing an app on your phone, I don’t know what is!

Find out more at PrayerMate’s website.

Photo credit: Joris_Louwes