You’ll also have the chance, if ever you feel moved, to contribute in other ways to the ministry of net-burst.com. You may, for instance, send a note – a prayer, word of encouragement or whatever – to the person with the prayer need. There’s no obligation of course – just if ever you feel led, the opportunity is there. If there’s no other e-mail address, just use the reply address on the prayer request e-mail. If you wish, you may also get involved in almost any aspect of the work (graphics, webpage design, translation, proof-reading, research, and so on).

Please take a relaxed, joyful attitude to the prayer requests. We have so many requests, and such serious needs, that they have the potential to weigh us down. Satan would love to get in and condemn us for not praying more etc.

I always remind our prayer team that no one is under any expectation to even read every e-mail, much less pray for every request. We fully recognize our team members’ differing capacities and time restraints, but my feeling is that even if you were to offer only one 5 second prayer, it’s infinitely better than none! Rejoice in the prayers you offer, don’t lament the prayers that go unsaid.

Almost any born again Christian may join. That way, everyone can experience the joy of ministering to others and new Christians can start benefiting immediately from the spiritual principle that it is more blessed to give than to receive. At the same time, however, we need to protect everyone. We do this by keeping e-mail addresses confidential and any e-mails sent by team members are read and possibly edited before being sent on to the intended person. That way team members weak in faith will not receive challenging e-mails that might upset them and members frightened about saying the wrong thing have the security of knowing that their e-mails are double checked before forwarding them on. Also, chances are that someone knows more details about the situation than are included in the request and so has more information on which to judge the appropriateness of the e-mail.

When posting prayer requests we keep in mind this guideline: since there is a limit to how many needs any of us can pray for, the more requests we include, the more each request is diluted. There is also a limit to how much we can read and some of us live very busy lives. If we go beyond the limits of some members, they will drop out. So we try to restrict ourselves to requests from people who have little other support – situations where if we don’t pray almost no one prays for them – and we try to keep the wording of each request as brief as we can, while still doing justice to the request. In e-mails to the full team we also restrict ourselves to prayer requests (and praise related to those requests) and avoid teaching/devotional items.

Since we are a fellowship of Christians from a vast variety of churches and Christian heritages, we try to avoid mentioning by name specific ministries and church movements other than net-burst.com, as, sadly, no movement or person seems to have universal acceptance within the body of Christ. We strive for a degree of unity among ourselves that spans tragic divisions within Christ’s body as a whole. And that’s no easy task. For more detail see Unity.

For more about net-burst.com see Beliefs

1. I receive prayer requests directly (therefore I have the e-mail address of the person making the request), or through a team member (in which case I may or may not have the e-mail address of the original requester);

2. Editing them as necessary, I cut and paste these requests into a new document and e-mail it to all the team members with their e-mail addresses suppressed (to preserve each other’s privacy);

3. The team members, as they are able, lift up those prayer requests to our Heavenly Father through our Lord Jesus (to whom be all the glory now and evermore), praying for wisdom from God as to how he wants to answer those prayer requests (we never lean on our own understanding, do we?) (I am laughing at myself here!)

4. If you get a word of wisdom or encouragement from the Lord for the person you are praying for, please send it to me. Sometimes people also feel led to type out their prayers and e-mail them. This can be a great source of comfort to people. Remembering that people who are hurting can be very sensitive, (see How to Comfort the Hurting) I edit, if necessary, your e-mail and forward it to the requester, usually including your first name, unless you specifically tell me to withhold this.

5. Our Heavenly Father then does exceedingly abundantly more than we can ask or even think according to the power that works within us (Ephesians 3:20) to answer our prayers.

6. If I get any feedback from the requester of prayers, I send it on to the team for encouragement.

7. Another vital aspect of our ministry is to intercede for net-burst.com, with its potential to touch millions through its webpages and e-mail support. Our prayers can change the course of human history. For more direction as to how to pray along these lines, see Top Priority Prayer Needs. We have a big God, so please pray big prayers.

If you have questions or comments, please let me know!

By the way, if I only have your e-mail address, please feel free to give me your name so at least Grantley and I can know you by name! Thanks!