Remember the church prayer chain? Many churches around North America still have active prayer chain ministries. For those who think a prayer chain is a piece of jewelry, let me enlighten you.
A prayer chain consists of a group of volunteers who agree to pray for prayer requests as they are submitted by church members. Prayer requests are directed to the person at the top of the "chain" (usually the leader of the prayer chain ministry.) He or she then delivers that prayer request to a small group of individual volunteers (in the "olden days" this occurred by telephone.) Each of those individuals then delivers that same request to a group of individual volunteers underneath him/her, and so on until everyone in the prayer chain ministry has received the request. It's a fast way to get multiple people (dozens or even hundreds) interceding in prayer on behalf of one person. (Think "Pyramid Scheme," except in this version you get prayed for instead of ripped off.)
My church has a very active prayer ministry, though it's a little less formal than an organized "prayer chain," and probably a lot faster than the old-fashioned telephone variety. Prayer requests can be submitted to a staff, board or prayer team member. These three groups of people work closely together to ensure that each of the other groups knows that a prayer request has been made, and most of the communication is done by email, which tends to be faster, less invasive, and more reliable than the phone prayer chain.
My husband and I recently experienced a whole new twist on the good old-fashioned prayer chain. A couple of weeks ago my middle child came down with what appeared to be a pesky but tenacious virus. It turned out to be parvo-virus, a garden variety flu-type bug that strikes just about everyone on the planet during childhood.
Parvo-virus is normally little more than a nuisance. What differentiates it from other flu-like viruses is that it attacks the bone marrow and temporarily halts the production of red blood cells.
Human beings normally make a surplus of red blood cells for just such times as these. However, my two sons happen to have hereditary spherocytosis, an inherited blood disorder which inhibits the proper production of red blood cells. The cells that are produced are the wrong shape (spherical instead of round) and subject to attack by the spleen, which thinks they are foreign substances and therefore wipes out many of them. So parvo-virus can be deadly for my two boys.
My son got very ill very quickly, and ended up needing an emergency blood transfusion and hospital stay.
As I threw together an overnight bag so that I could accompany my son to the hospital, I quickly posted a request for prayer on Facebook. To my surprise, hundreds of people knew within hours of my son's admittance to the hospital and had already prayed for Joshua's recovery. And not just locals either.... people from all over Canada and the United States were praying for my son before he'd even drained the first of two bags of blood that he needed.
I couldn't help but marvel at this modern twist on the prayer chain. This is not intended to be an endorsement for Facebook (though I admit that I am slightly addicted to it.) I am also aware that Facebook has been misused, abused and employed as a tool to promote all sorts of insidious ideas and causes and has even served to destroy the careers and reputations of people (even Christians.) But Facebook, when used wisely, can also be a tremendous tool for the church in general, and for individual Christians, particularly in times of need as I so recently came to discover.
As it turned out, Joshua graciously shared his virus with his little brother Josiah (now why can't I get them to share toys?) and a week later we found ourselves in a re-run except with a different child. Once again we turned to Facebook for prayer, and were deeply rewarded to find so many friends praying for us and encouraging us, even people that we haven't seen in years. I am exceedingly grateful for this contemporary twist on the prayer chain.
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