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July 27, 2007
Building A Network
(Filed under: Evangelism & Outreach)by Kevin Peterson, Guest Blogger
Call it church marketing if you want, but Southeast Christian in Louisville, Ky. (my own church) is taking a unique approach to reaching the community.
Kyle Idleman has taken a three-part sermon series and turned it on its ear. The series is focused on prayer, not so much how to pray, but why we should pray. In an effort to connect the community to prayer, 25 small ballot boxes were placed around town.
You’ll find them in restaurants, doctor’s offices, bus stations, stores and even a prison. Each box has a simple sign letting people know they can write their prayer request on a slip of paper and a church in their community will pray for them. Or if they would like they can visit www.prayerboxnetwork.com (Ed. note: Link no longer working as of June 15th, 2008) and enter their request or praise online.
It’s all a part of a sermon series called “Welcome to the Network” and people are responding. The web site is filling up with prayer requests, some are short and simple, others are longer, but more importantly, people are praying for each other.
Sometimes the greatest marketing a church can do to help a lost world is to simply reach out its hand with a promise to pray.
Posted by Guest Blogger at July 27, 2007 11:48 AM
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Comments
Great idea on the prayerboxnetwork ... we were just talking about doing something similar to this recently, just not with a sermon series. (Honest)
This is a great idea for engaging the community!
Posted by: Cory Miller at July 27, 2007 8:26 AM
What an amazing idea. Prayer is such a friendly and others centered way to engage people on faith issues. This should catch fire! dt
Posted by: dt at July 27, 2007 9:18 AM
Great idea! This is an amazing way to promote community involvement in a way that isn't confrontational.
Be sure to keep everyone updated on the series and the community's response to the prayer boxes.
Posted by: Brent Levesque at July 27, 2007 4:16 PM
Dude! Well done a well executed and original, creative idea!
BRAVO!
Posted by: Michael Buckingham at July 27, 2007 9:40 PM
Kevin,
Any way to get a photo of one of these boxes and perhaps better idea of what the sign on the boxes reads? Would love to copy what is working and do something similar in my area.
Posted by: Daniel D at July 29, 2007 10:02 PM
Daniel,
I've got a picture of the box on my Flickr page. Check it out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/80898937@N00/876404467/
Let me know if you have any other questions. Glad to help.
Kevin
Posted by: Kevin Peterson at July 30, 2007 8:13 AM
Great idea. Interesting timing. We've just been talking about how to make prayer a greater part of our church.
Posted by: Dan B. at July 30, 2007 2:13 PM
Thanks Kevin. Awesome pics. Much nicer than what I was expecting. Have you guys thoughts of opening this up and maybe making it possible for... say, someone like me to buy some of these boxes and pads and use them in my local area? Either making PrayerBoxNetwork.com opened up to all over the USA or allow us some way to buy these boxes and have them customized to a local web page of our own?
I'm all about not having to reinvent the wheel. :)
Posted by: Daniel D at July 30, 2007 5:58 PM
I've recreated the web portion of this using open source software and would like to get feedback on it.
http://prayer.mdihosting.com
Eventually I'd like to provide this to any church who would like to use it for free (including free hosting). - Matt 10:8
Posted by: Chad Marshall at August 13, 2007 8:40 AM
You people are so delusional. What if every religion did this in a community? Stop trying to sell religion, leave us alone.
Posted by: Steve H at January 16, 2008 10:48 PM
This is a great idea. We are always looking for ways that we can contribute back to our community. We do a lot of community service type projects to meet physical needs. But this could be a great way to meet the spiritual needs of our city.
FYI, as of June 08 the prayerboxnetwork.com is down.
Posted by: Ben B at June 13, 2008 10:50 AM
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