Pastoral Care
Prayer Requests
Quick Summary: Receive, organize, and share prayer requests with your congregation and prayer team. Members control their own privacy preferences—public, prayer team only, or pastoral staff only.
Overview
Prayer is central to the life of your church. When members face illness, job loss, family challenges, or times of gratitude, they want to know their church family is praying with them. But managing prayer requests—especially respecting different privacy preferences—can be complex.
Relius Prayer Requests provides a simple way for members to submit requests through your website, app, or in person. Each request can be routed appropriately based on the submitter's privacy preference: shared publicly with the congregation, sent to a dedicated prayer team, or kept confidential with pastoral staff only.
Prayer team members receive notifications when new requests come in, can mark requests as "prayed for," and can add updates as situations evolve.
Key Concepts
Privacy Levels
- Public: Shared in bulletins, announcements, public prayer lists
- Prayer Team: Visible to designated prayer team members only
- Pastoral Only: Visible to pastoral staff only
Prayer Teams
Create one or more prayer teams (e.g., "Intercessory Prayer Team," "Elder Prayer Chain"). Requests routed to "Prayer Team" go to all members of your designated teams.
Request Status
Track requests as Active, Answered, orClosed. Celebrate answered prayers and archive old requests while keeping a complete history.
Updates
Add updates to requests as situations evolve. "Surgery went well!" or "Still waiting on test results" keeps prayer partners informed.
Receiving Prayer Requests
Members can submit prayer requests through multiple channels:
Public Website Form
Enable the prayer request form on your public website. Visitors and members can submit requests anytime. They'll select their privacy preference and optionally include contact information.
Member App
Logged-in members can submit requests through the Relius app. Their name is automatically associated (unless they choose anonymous), and they can track updates on their own requests.
Manual Entry
Pastoral staff can enter requests on behalf of members—useful for requests received by phone, in person, or via email.
During Services
Some churches collect prayer cards during services. Staff can quickly enter these through the Pastoral Care → Prayer Requests → Add Request interface.
Managing Requests
Prayer Dashboard
The Prayer Requests dashboard shows all active requests organized by date. Filter by privacy level, category, or date range. Prayer team members see only requests they have access to.
Marking as Prayed
Prayer team members can click "I prayed for this" to log their intercession. This creates a record of prayer coverage and encourages consistent prayer across the team.
Adding Updates
When you receive news about a prayer request, add an update. The original submitter (if they provided contact info) can be automatically notified of updates to their request.
Advanced: Prayer Request Categories
Organize requests by category to help prayer partners focus:
- Health: Illness, surgery, recovery
- Family: Relationships, children, marriage
- Work/Finances: Jobs, financial needs
- Spiritual Growth: Faith journeys, decisions
- Grief: Loss of loved ones
- Praise: Thanksgiving and answered prayers
Customize categories in Settings → Pastoral Care → Prayer Categories.
Advanced: Automatic Expiration
Set requests to automatically move to "Closed" status after a period (e.g., 30 days). Before closing, the submitter receives a notification asking if they want to extend the request or mark it answered.
This keeps your active prayer list fresh and prompts follow-up with those who submitted requests.
Sharing Prayer Requests
Weekly Prayer List
Generate a formatted prayer list for bulletins, emails, or slides. Go to Prayer Requests → Generate List and select your date range. Only public requests are included automatically.
Prayer Chain Notifications
Enable instant notifications for your prayer team. When a new "Prayer Team" or "Pastoral Only" request comes in, team members receive an email or push notification (based on their preferences).
Public Prayer Wall
Display a live prayer wall on your website or lobby screens showing public requests. Members can add their own prayers directly from the wall.
Best Practices
Honor privacy choices
If someone marks a request as "Prayer Team Only," never share it publicly—even if you think more prayer would help. Trust is essential.
Follow up on requests
Check in with submitters periodically. "How are things going with your mother's health?" shows that prayer isn't just words—it's care.
Celebrate answered prayers
When requests are marked "Answered," share the good news (with permission). This builds faith and encourages others to share their needs.
Train your prayer team
Ensure team members understand confidentiality. What's shared in the prayer team stays in the prayer team.
Common Questions
Q: Can people submit anonymous requests?
Yes. On the public form, submitters can choose to remain anonymous. Their request will show "Anonymous" as the requester. If they want follow-up, they can optionally provide an email.
Q: How do I remove someone from the prayer team?
Go to Groups → Prayer Team and remove them from the group. They'll immediately lose access to "Prayer Team" level requests.
Q: Can I import prayer requests from another system?
Yes, you can import requests via CSV. Go to Pastoral Care → Prayer Requests → Import. Map your columns to our fields and set the default privacy level.