Local pastors have joined forces over the last year documenting prayer requests, prayers, and how those prayers were answered. The results so far have determined what most of us kind of knew all along--prayers work better when tell someone you are doing it.
A group of 100 people from each of 20 different churches were selected at random (50 male and 50 female) from each church, somewhere in Nebraska. Each person was told to pray about at least one different thing specifically, daily. Half of them were told to never tell a soul regarding that specific prayer, while the other half was told to tell the people they are praying for or to tell someone else that they prayed. They could tell as few or as many people as they want, but someone had to be told it was happening.
Most people, like Jordan Sparks who was in the "Tell-Them group", chose to tell multiple people online for convenience. She told us, "I loved being able to shout it from the rooftops! It's so easy in this day and age. With all the whining and complaining that takes place on social media, one quick scroll and I could find just the thing to comment on. I'd just say, 'prayers coming your way', and 'sending one to the Big-Man-Upstairs right now'. Easy-peasy. Prayer works!"
Beckett Williams who was in the "Do-Not-Tell-Them group", explained, "It was really hard, actually. I so badly wanted to say something, because I had no idea if it was working. I would see Jordan and others on Facebook sending prayers all over the place and I was over here just staring at my computer like, 'Why me?'. I was so depressed over the whole thing, I found it really hard to pray for them. Maybe that was part of the problem. I feel like it really stole my faith a bit not being able to tell everyone all the time about it. Were my prayers even being sent? Could God even hear me? I had no way of knowing really. Next time I want to be in Jordan's group."
Well, the results are in and there was a slight but clear difference of a 45% to 55% in favor of the Tell-Them group. One of the local pastors who will be unnamed for the purpose of this study, told us, "There are a variety of factors that play into this, we know. Next time, we may try letting the Do-Not-Tell-Them group tell just one other person, privately. We heard a lot of complaints about depression and we are wondering if this was resulting in lackluster praying. James 5:16 tells us that 'The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.' It's possible the isolation was causing depression, and less fervent or righteous attitudes were exhibited in the minds of those praying. We don't know for sure, but it's a thought we are just rolling around right now. Maybe if they could tell just one other person privately, it would take care of it. We have other thoughts in the works for the next trial. We aren't done here, but we are praying about it often. I just felt I had to tell you, given our current findings."
(In the above post, any names of people and their given situations are entirely made up to illustrate a point of satire)
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