Prayer Requests

Prayer Requests is your church's inbox for prayer requests that viewers send from your watch page, during a live stream or between services. Requests are private: they are never shown on the watch page.

Where to find it

Open People > Prayer Requests in the sidebar (web address /app/people/prayer-requests). It works the same in the web app and in Tech Manager. The menu row shows how many requests are New.

Turn prayer requests on

Viewers can only send requests when the switch on your watch page is on.

1. Go to Publish > Watch Page.
2. In the Taking Part card, turn on Prayer requests.
3. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Your watch page now shows a "Send a prayer request" button. Viewers sign in with their email and send their request. While prayer requests are on, any Prayer request link you entered under Buttons and Links is hidden, because the button replaces it.

You can check the switch from the inbox too: the On the watch page card shows Prayer requests as On or Off, and Watch page settings takes you there.

Read and look after requests

1. Go to People > Prayer Requests.
2. Pick New, All or Archived at the top. Each shows how many it holds; requests are listed newest first.
3. Each request shows the name (or Anonymous), their email if they gave one, when it arrived, which live stream it came during (or "Watch page · between services"), and what they asked.
4. When someone has prayed for it, click Mark prayed for. It leaves the New list and shows "Prayed for by (name)" with the date.
5. Click Archive to file a request away. In Archived, click Restore to bring it back.
6. Click Mark as new to put a prayed-for request back in New.
7. If they left an email, click Reply by email to write to them from your own email app.

The page checks for new requests every 30 seconds, so you can leave it open during a service.

Get new requests by email

1. Go to People > Prayer Requests.
2. In the Email new requests card, type one address in Email new requests to (for example your prayer team's shared inbox) and click Save.
3. Turn on Send emails. The card says where new requests go.

Requests that arrive close together come as one email, at most one every ten minutes, with a link back to this page. The subject line only says how many requests there are, not what they say. Turn Send emails off to stop; requests still arrive in the inbox.

Troubleshooting

Problems with Prayer Requests:

No requests are coming in

Check the On the watch page card. If Prayer requests says Off, turn it on in Publish > Watch Page and click Save. Also check you are looking at All, not just New.

"Prayer requests come in through your watch page, which plays what your encoder sends. Set one up first."

Your church has no encoder yet, so there is no watch page. Click Encoders, set one up, then turn prayer requests on.

"Add the address to email new prayer requests to."

You turned on Send emails with no address. Type the address, click Save, then turn the switch on.

The prayer team isn't getting the emails

Make sure Send emails is on and the card shows the right address. Ask them to check spam; emails are grouped, at most one every ten minutes.

Good to know

• Everyone on your church's team who signs in to WorshipMetrics can read prayer requests. Viewers never see each other's requests.
• Live chat on the watch page is separate and public; prayer requests are private and need no moderator.
• Marking, archiving and restoring record who did it and when.