Pray one for Me goes virtual in Halas

On previous Ash Wednesdays, churches have often been found on the streets of their local communities, offering to pray for people there. As that wasn’t possible this year, the Halas Team in Halesowen wanted to find a way to still give local people the chance to ask them to ‘Pray One for Me’.

Vicar of St Peter, Cradley, Katryn Leclezio, said: “We’ve noticed a real increase in people filling out the parish prayer form on our website and now have daily requests for prayer from a whole range of different people. We couldn’t go out onto the streets to ask local people if we could pray for them, so wanted to try a similar idea in a different way to see if it would work.”

A team of volunteers from the churches in the team will be available every Thursday during Lent from 6 – 7pm. They can be contacted through Zoom, Facebook or via a dedicated mobile phone number. Individuals wanting prayer can ring the number or email Katryn for the Zoom link and there will be someone available to receive the prayer request and have a short time of prayer together. Prayers can also be posted on the Facebook page or the team contacted through Facebook Messenger.  After the hour, the team will come together to debrief and pray.

“So many people have been affected by the pandemic in different ways and there is a huge amount of grief, loss and also mental health issues around at the moment,” continued Katryn. “Offering to pray for people seemed like an opportunity to offer a space to begin the healing process and connect with the local church.”

Pray One for Me will run in the Halas Team 6 – 7pm each Thursday from 17 February to 28 March.