Every church bulletin that I have ever seen includes some kind of “Prayer List” within its pages. That fact alone is interesting—why do all churches find it appropriate, needful and effective to publish a list of names for which the church to pray? Is it simply to have something that takes up some space in the bulletin? Or is there a greater purpose?
Having a prayer list in the bulletin is an expedient way to fulfill the command in Scripture to “pray for one another” (Jas. 5:16). How can we effectively pray for one another? We need a list of names—a church bulletin and even a church directory help to provide that. And if there are specific needs, then we have a focus to which we can give those prayers.
Having a prayer list follows in the footsteps of the apostle Paul. Scripture does not specify that Paul kept a list, but when you read his letters, he constantly says to congregations and to individual Christians that he is “always…making mention” of them in his “prayers” (1 Thess. 1:2). Did he have a good memory to recall all of those, by name, for whom he was praying? Or did he keep a list? A list helps us to pray like Paul.
When we pray for those brethren in the church bulletin, we are doing the very best and the most powerful thing that we can do for them—we are talking to the God of heaven, the Creator and Sustainer of all things, about a specific person, and drawing His powerful attention in his/her direction. What could be better than that? The “prayer of a righteous man avails much” (Jas. 5:16, NKJV). It “has great power as it is working” (ESV). That power, first and foremost, is the power of God to respond to our requests (Eph. 3:20-21).
When we pray for those brethren in the church bulletin, it has great power for the one for whom we pray. Paul told his brother Philemon, “I trust that through your prayers I shall be granted to you” (Phile. 22). Paul told the Corinthian brethren that the Lord had delivered him and “will still deliver us,” through their “helping together in prayer for us” (2 Cor. 1:10-11). Prayer makes a difference in the lives of others.
But, also, when we pray for those brethren in the church bulletin, it has great power for the one who is doing the praying. It helps us to look beyond ourselves to the needs of others. It helps us to learn the members of the church, perhaps leading us to look some of them up in the church directory to see who they are. It helps us to draw closer to our brethren, as we lift their names before our Father and even share with them that we prayed for them.
Prayer is powerful! Using that prayer list in the church bulletin “has great power [for all of us] as it is working.”