How to Motivate People To Pray


How do you motivate people to sign up for an hour in a 24-7 Prayer Room?

It’s easier than you think!  Here are our top ten tips:

1. It’s not about size

The people in your community are more important than the room you pray in or the way you decorate it.  It only takes 24 people to take an hour a day to fill a week with non-stop prayer.  You don’t need a large group but it helps to have a strong sense of commitment to each other and to God.  Emphasise that this is something you're going for together. 24-7 Prayer can really unify a church or community. 

2. Mobilise your leaders

Whether you’re praying with your church, youth group, work friends, students or others, look for the leaders in your group.  These may be people with roles and responsibilities or they may not.  Find the people within different generations and social groups who are good at getting people excited and activated.  Make them champions of the 24-7 Prayer week; maybe give them a copy of Red Moon Rising by Pete Greig and tell them why you want to pray.  Invite them be some of the first to choose their hour slots and ask for their help to encourage others to sign up to pray.

3. Let the youth take a lead

The extreme challenge of 24-7 Prayer and the creative environment of the prayer room can really engage the younger generations. Consider having the youth of your community own the vision and champion the prayer room.  The older generations will often get involved with something the youth lead when God’s Spirit is in it, but the youth may struggle to get involved with something that seems aimed at the older generations.  Focusing on the younger and relying on the maturity of the older could help bring all together.  You could also arrange for the youth of your church to have a supervised sleep-over in the prayer room to cover one night during your prayer time.

4. Share the Vision

Know why you’re praying.  Practice explaining the vision in a succinct and motivating way.  Why not teach on prayer and put out the call to pray in all every format your community uses to communicate (websites, newsletters, announcements in meetings etc.) Do whatever you can to let as many people as possible hear the vision. You may be surprised; the people you least expect can be the ones taking many of the hours.

5. Give plenty of notice

If God is speaking you can organise a prayer room on short notice, but unless you have clear direction from God we recommend giving your community at least a month’s notice.  Make sure everyone has the dates and ask them to think in advance about making time to pray.

6. Use Social Media

How does your community talk: phone, text, email, twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Instagram or something else?  Think about how you could use these platforms to promote the prayer room and motivate people to pray.  Tweet, send or post a Bible verse or motivational quote each day, or make a video to share about why you’re praying and how people can get involved.

7. Ask, ask and ask again

Don’t be afraid of repeating yourself.  Talk about the prayer room and signing up for hour slots at all your meetings.  Find a new ways to motivate and inspire people by sharing Bible verses on prayer, telling stories of how prayer has made a difference and use 24-7 Prayer’s videos and resources.  Watch or download them from our video page.

8. Use people’s interests

If people are reluctant to sign up for the prayer room why not set aside hours within your prayer time to gather people interested in specific things.  For example you could gather groups to pray for schools, business, human trafficking, marriage or those who don’t know Jesus.

9. Get people to pray about signing up

This may sound strange but if you make space in your meeting and invite everyone to ask God how much time He would like to spend with them in the 24-7 Prayer Room it can often provoke a great response.  God wants to talk!

10. Sign-up online

Take advantage of our online sign-up sheet. Each 24-7 Prayer Room that registers gets a unique page you can use to get people signing up to pray. Here are a few suggestions on how to use and promote it:

  • Have an online computer at the back of your meetings so people can see the sign-up page and commit to pray there and then.
  • Link to the sign-up page from your website, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or other online platforms.
  • Print cards or flyers with the web-address if the sign-up sheet. Hand them out at meetings so people can access it from home or work.  If you want to make the address memorable use a service like tinyurl and name it something you know people will easily remember.
  • Make a barcode or QR code that can be printed or put online then scanned by a smart phone to point people to the sign-up sheet. If you have a community who would use this try using this tool.

Register now to download the 24-7 Prayer Room Pack and access personal support from our team.