Cone Prayer Shield

I’ve been getting asked about our family Prayer Shield a lot lately, so I thought it only fitting to share about what it is, how it got started and how we plan to refine it for 2012.

I first learned about having a prayer shield from one of my mentors and colleagues, Catherine Hickem.  Though I know we are to called to cover each other in prayer, it was the first time I’d seen someone be so intentional about rallying others in protective prayer on a consistent basis. While she asked others to cover certain areas of her ministry in prayer, I thought it fitting to do something similar for our family.

Thus the Cone Prayer Shield was born! What we decided was to find someone (or a family we knew, loved and trusted) to commit to praying for our family on the same day of each month. In return, we would commit to pray for them and their family on that same day every month.

It’s as simple as that. We sent an email out (this was before Facebook) asking if friends, family, co-workers, etc would be interesting in committing to do what we described above for one year; that’s right, we asked for a 12 month commitment. I also promised to send out an update at the beginning of each month with what happened in our family in the prior month and what we coveted prayer for in the coming month (something I’ve been woefully behind in doing and hope to get better at in 2012).

We then filled out the names of the parties who agreed on a form and posted it in an easily visible, highly trafficked area (for us, that meant the fridge, as seen above). I also made smaller copies of the shield for me to carry in my purse organizer and put in the car (though I may now make one for my iPhone in 2012).

I’m also purposing in 2012 to contact the people we’re praying for in some way on the day we pray. I’m not pretending to think I’ll be able to call them each time (since I’m a horrible phone person), but it may be a text message, Facebook wall post or a quick email.

I’ve gone so far as to create a very basic (VERY basic) family prayer shield for you all to get started as well, if you wish. It’s simply a Google doc, and some of you would be able to create something much prettier on your own, but for those of you without computer software or know-how, I wanted you to have something you could simply and quickly print out today.

You would be amazed at what can happen in your life when you know your family is covered in prayer each and every single day of the year. it doesn’t cost you anything: only faith and commitment. So what’s stopping you from starting today?

Download your free family prayer shield