International Mission Board launches prayer app, spreads word about God’s work

When 79-year-old June Livingstone discovered she could see the latest pictures of her family and grandchildren on Facebook, she decided it was time to sign up. But it wasn’t her loved ones who completely hooked her on the social media craze. It was missions.

For about a year, the International Mission Board’s (IMB) office of global prayer strategy has posted prayer requests and updates from missionaries overseas through CompassionNet on Facebook. But on April 1 the IMB took it a step further and launched a prayer app — CompassionNet — which offers even easier access from smartphones (iPhones and Android phones) and iPads. There, users can also find missionary blog excerpts, video clips and prayer guides.

“[CompassionNet is] my very favorite thing on Facebook,” said Livingstone, a member of Forest Hills Baptist Church, Nashville. “It’s given me a ministry.”

Livingstone used to enjoy volunteer missions trips but can’t travel much now, so she focuses on prayer.

“I’m amazed at how much more I do pray,” she said. “I think it does me more good than it does [the missionaries].”

Ability to interact

Ed Cox, director of the office of global prayer strategy, hopes others, like Livingstone, will continue to utilize social media to provide prayer support for God’s work.

“If we were going to communicate with Southern Baptists we need to be where they are … and they are on Facebook. They are on Twitter,” he said.

That realization has kept the prayer office busy posting multiple prayer requests and updates each day through Twitter and Facebook.

These posts not only create awareness, they also provide encouragement for missionaries on the field, Cox said.
“[Missionaries] hear constantly, ‘I’m praying for you,’” he said. “[But] this allows them to be able to … go into the prayer closet with the intercessor.

“I think the powerful thing behind Facebook, as opposed to our e-newsletters and our website, is the fact that people have the opportunity to interact.”

The IMB has more than 750 followers of “IMBprayerdir” on Twitter and more than 3,100 friends of CompassionNet on Facebook. (BP)