There’s been a lot of buzz going around about WeTheChurch. It’s a quick and easy way to share a prayer or a praise, and it’s a great way to spend a few minutes–praying for others and celebrating with them. It grew and grew, then it ran into problems when a lack of moderation opened the door for some miscreants to bring down the site. So what does all this mean to your church?
It means there is something we should all be doing.
Folks are looking to share both their struggles and their successes. There’s a place for us to do that with boldness and openness, and there’s a place for us to do that with anonymity, trusting God will do the work even when we don’t know the names and faces.
Churches have done drive-through prayer drop-offs and prayer-boxes in the lobby, but these fall a bit short in that they connect individuals to church staff. Technology affords the opportunity to connect person-to-person in their prayers.
They will know we are his disciples by our love for one another.
We shouldn’t be ashamed to let the world know that we are hurting and in need, and we should certainly show that we are doing everything we can to help those around us. Being the church to one another shows others the power of God and supports our message that we have a God who cares and listens.
WeTheChurch realizes this, but does your church? What are you doing to connect member-to-member for the purpose of prayer and celebration? And what outlets are you providing for people who aren’t in your church to take their first steps towards approaching God about the issues in their lives?
Eek. And one more lesson we can learn…
After I originally wrote this, WeTheChurch was brought to its knees–a lack of moderation allowed a few miscreants to take down the site.
When your church is ready to implement something new, think worst case scenario. Then prepare for it. A service is no good to your community if they can’t use it because a few deviant-minded people misuse it.
But kudos to them to getting the service up and running and addressing the individuals involved with love, prayer and forgiveness. That’s a heck of a way to market yourself and your church.
Chad Wright
May 21, 2008
Thanks for helping to promote the site.
The outage due to abuse actually turned out to be a good thing. One it taught me a hard lesson. Two, I was surprised at the number of people that rallied to support the site with messages when it went down. I was shocked at the number of people that had been reached in less than a week. When you say it brought us to our knees you weren’t kidding. I know of a lot of people who were praying for it.
The site really is about nothing but prayer for others. We intentionally left off any way to put in your name or the name of your church. Some people might do it in the post but I wanted it to be genuine prayer for people and not have denominations come into play.
The other great thing is the number of really serious prayers we’ve seen come through. This was originally set up to unite the world of ministry in praying for each other’s ministries, but it quickly turned into a place for prayer and praises of all kind.
Thanks again for helping to spread the word.