Prayer wall

The quickest prayers usually come from people who already love you. In PrayerBoard you write a sentence or two to a private circle, like your family or your small group, and they get a gentle notification to pray. When they do, you see it: “Sarah prayed for you.” If the details aren't yours to share, make the request private and only you see the words.

If your church has a PrayerBoard prayer wall, post there too. We don't run a public wall for strangers, so we won't promise someone you've never met will pray. Many ministries do run one, and they're a good place to ask as well.

If you're in danger or thinking about ending your life, please don't wait for a prayer wall. In the US, call or text 988, or call 911.

A prayer wall is any shared surface where people leave requests for others to pray over. The idea is old: for centuries people have tucked written prayers into the cracks of the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Today the name covers three things.

A physical prayer wall

A wall, board or corkboard with handwritten notes on it. It might be in a church foyer, a school chapel, a hospital or a kitchen. Its strength is that you can see it. Its weakness is that it only reaches the people who walk past it, and nobody knows if their note was prayed for.

A church prayer wall

A church's own place for requests, kept by a prayer team. Sometimes it's a real wall, sometimes a card in the pew, a box at the back or an email address. The best ones tell you someone prayed, and share the answers.

An online prayer wall

A web page where people post requests and others pray for them. Big ministries run public ones that anyone can post to. A church can run its own, so requests stay with the people who will actually pray, and leaders can approve what's posted.

More ideas for home, including a free printable kit, are in our prayer board ideas guide. For a phone-sized version, see how to make a digital prayer board.

PrayerBoard for churches gives your congregation one prayer wall page. Members and visitors submit requests, pray for each other and find out when someone prayed for them. It runs in the browser, so nobody needs to download anything.

1. Create a free account and name your board after your church.
2. In Settings, turn on Require approval, so a leader sees each request before it goes up.
3. Add your church's photo and banner, so people know they're in the right place.
4. Copy your board's link, or download its QR code, and share it in your bulletin, newsletter, slides or group chats.
5. Ask your prayer team to pray through the board each week, sorted by “Needs Prayer”.

What your people get:

• Anonymous or named requests. On a public request, each person chooses whether their name is shown.
• Private requests. A request marked Private is seen only by the board's host, for things that shouldn't be public.
• “Someone prayed” emails. Leave an email, and you hear each time someone prays.
• Audio prayers. People can pray with a short voice recording instead of typing.
• Answered prayers. The person who asked can mark it answered and add a short testimony, in writing or audio.

The full tour, with pricing and how it compares to a Google Form or a Facebook group, is on PrayerBoard for churches.

An online prayer wall holds people's hardest weeks, so it needs a few guardrails. Whatever tool you use, look for these:

• Approval before posting. On PrayerBoard, Require approval holds every new request until a leader approves it.
• Hide and delete. Leaders can hide a request, bring it back or delete it.
• Reports. A prayer note can be reported, and reported notes go to a list for leaders to review.
• Spam protection. Submissions are rate-limited and screened for bots.
• Choice for the person asking. Anonymous, private or named, decided by the person who asks.

A simple rule for your prayer team helps too: pray for what's written, don't repeat it outside the team and pass anything that sounds urgent to a pastor the same day. For a church that wants a phone list as well, see how to start a prayer chain.

People searching for a prayer wall app usually want one of two things, and they do different jobs. A prayer wall is wide: a whole congregation, including people who don't know each other. A prayer app like PrayerBoard is close: a few people who know your story, praying for each other all week. Most churches benefit from both, a wall for the congregation and small circles for groups and families. Our prayer request app page explains how the circles work.