Behind The Scenes

Prayer is one of the most fundamental aspects of our journey as Christians and, more importantly, in our relationship with God. As such, Faith Family has always seen it as a priority to make sure that we are consistently praying for our families, our communities, our nation and our world. The Prayer Chain is an email thread and process that has been created to enable strong and reliable communication of needs that have been expressed across our Faith Family (and beyond) that have been asked to be upheld in prayer. Our amazing Grafton pastor, Lynn Whalen, is the current administrator of the Prayer Chain.

Functionally, there are many different ways to share a prayer request or a praise point to Faith Family - the most typical of these being an email direct to prayer@faithfamily.com.au, a submitted Prayer Request card or simply through word of mouth to a pastor. Regardless of method, these prayer requests are collated weekly and summarised into two groups for distribution: full information for pastoral team and leadership and summarised information for congregants and members of the Prayer Chain email thread. The reason for this modification is twofold; firstly, to protect the privacy of congregation members or members of the public who wish to share a need for prayer, but may not feel comfortable with others knowing personal details about their life. Secondly, to enable the pastors and leadership of Faith Family to personally connect with people throughout the week and follow up on situations outlined in a person’s prayer request, if able, without fear of public embarrassment or shame for the person asking for prayer.

The Prayer Chain email thread (that is, the summarised information of weekly prayer requests made appropriate for congregational viewing) is sent out to those who have signed up to join. Anyone wishing to join the Prayer Chain or to have their email address removed from it (for whatever reason) is welcome to do so by emailing prayer@faithfamily.com.au with their intention to join / request to be removed.

Prayer is such an important part of our walk with God and having the opportunity to pray for and alongside others can be an incredible blessing in a person’s life. If you are interesting in joining the Prayer Chain or have any further questions about it, please reach out!