The Church Mouse referenced the new Church of England interactive prayer thing yesterday and I thought it would be good to plug the new Methodist one: PrayNow which Mouse mentioned at the end of his piece.
Here is the official line:
Text PRAYNOW to 82088
- Free weekly prayer texts from the Methodist Church
Following a successful pilot, the Methodist Church is now offering free weekly prayer texts to help Methodists join in prayer with hundreds of others on topical and personal issues.
To receive the texts people simply send a text message reading PRAYNOW to 82088, which will be charged at their standard network rate. All of the prayer texts they receive will be free of charge.
Users of the pilot service were asked to text in their feedback and the result was overwhelmingly positive. June M texted in to say, “I welcome those prayertime texts, they make me stop & pray whatever I'm doing, where ever I am. Thank you 4 a valued service”. Another user said, “Many thanks this service is of great value and helps to encourage focusing on what is important during what we consider to be our priorities.”
“I feel moved by the idea that people across the country are being connected through the prayer text service,” said David Webster, the Church’s Internet Communications Coordinator. “Although many find the beeping of mobile phones annoying, for those signed up to PRAYNOW it will remind them that they are part of a growing community of prayer, whatever may be going on around them.”
Needless to say I have signed up and look forward to lots of opportunity to pray for people.
It's a good use of Web 2.0 and encouraging people to be more and more proactive and get inside the machinations of the Church. This is a good thing. I'm doing a talk tomorrow in which I've had to spend some time exploring the way in which the best Bible resources online are not those which provide a flat search tool but the ones that foster a community - whether it is the Methodist Word in Time, YouVersion providing online comments and live feeds, or Scripture Union's Word Alive offering multimedia and community dimensions, or Bible Society's Lyfe programme offering 'Friends'-type community with the Bible as a central gathering focus.
I really think there is something here in the attempt to move beyond Bible possession through to Bible engagement. Flat search engines replicate what people already have and distance people from the text. These programmes enhance their engagement - make them blow the dust off their texts and get to know the Word all over again or perhaps even for the first time.
Interactivity is the right way forward.
Pete
Pete
I did plug PRAYNOW as well, at the end of the post. Would be interested to hear how you get on with it - please do let us know.
Mouse
Posted by: Thechurchmouse | February 21, 2010 at 07:07 PM