3 Reasons Christian Authors Need a Prayer Team (and how to set one up)

This is episode 37 of Author Audience.

Welcome to the Author Audience show, the podcast that helps you reach more people with your message. Create a book, connect with your audience, change lives. Here's your host, Shelly Hitz.

My name is Shelly Hitz. I'm an author, coach, business strategist, and Christian entrepreneur on a mission to help you reach more people with your message. Today is a pretty deep topic. It's three reasons Christian authors need a prayer team and how to set it up. Not everyone is going to be interested in this topic. I get that. I understand that. But the reason that I'm talking about this today is I've had two of my authors in Author Audience Academy this week, have major, major issues with technology and different things. And both times I said, do you have a prayer team set up? If not, set one up asap. So three reasons every Christian author, I believe, needs a prayer team. Reason number one is there is a very real spiritual battle. The Bible talks about it in Ephesians 6 that we're to put on our armor and that we are to stand for this spiritual battle, that it's not just against flesh and blood, it's not just against, you know, what we can see, but there are spirits waging war, there's good and evil, and there's a very real spiritual battle. Now, my husband and I have been professional speakers for years. My husband has been doing it pretty much our whole marriage. We've been married 17 years. But I started speaking professionally 2007 and we would go specifically and speak to teens. I would speak to teen girls on the topics of body image and fashion, modesty, boys, sexuality, all of those types of topics. But it was a Christian based, faith based message. We would see it over and over again as Christian speakers. That spiritual battle. We would call them tech demons. Everything would be working perfectly. And then the minute you get up to speak, boom, some technology thing happens. Out of the blue, out of the middle of nowhere. It's like, where did this come from? For years we've talked about these tech demons. Sometimes it's just life. I'm not going to blame everything on it. You know, you don't want to give Satan too much power. But definitely there is a real spiritual battle. We have a lady in our church, Ruth Mott, she's traveled all over the world telling people in ministries, whether you're a speaker, an author, whether you're ministry, whatever you're in, that you need to have a prayer team. She does this internationally and she's retired now, so she doesn't travel anymore. But she's told us and talked to us about it. And I was on the women's prayer team with her for a while and just saw her heart, and I know that it's true. And so after talking with her, I set up a prayer team. And I'm going to talk to you about the specifics of how I set that up and how easy it can be. You can literally get it set up today. But first, the first reason is there is a very real spiritual battle. And sometimes those technology issues you have, yes, it may be life, yes, it may just be things happening, but it also may be a spiritual battle. If you have a message, if your book, your talk, your ministry in some way on social media, if you have a message that has an eternal impact, that means you're on the front line spiritually. That means you're out there doing things that the enemy would want to resist and oppose. If you're out there doing those sorts of things, if you're sharing the gospel in your books, if you're sharing a Christian message, guess what? The enemy will want to stop you. And sometimes he will use the craziest things. Technology is one of them. Discouragement, you know, is definitely another one, a huge one. But when you have people praying for you, it's almost like having that extra shield of protection around you. Many times what I find is Christian authors don't think they're in ministry, like a pastor or someone like that or a missionary. Like, oh, yeah, we need to pray for our missionaries, and we do. Like, my husband and I were missionaries for two years, and we really, really appreciated the prayers. But you are a missionary. You are on the front lines. If you're a Christian author, whether it's fiction or nonfiction or whatever you have in your book, if it has an eternal message, that is ministry and that is important. So the first reason is there is a spiritual battle. The second reason is what I just said. Your message has an eternal impact. And because of that.

I want your message to reach as many people as it can. And the enemy wants to stop that. One of the ways that we overcome the enemy is through prayer, because we are tapping into God's power. The third reason that you should have a prayer team is that God has provided the body of Christ in the church, whether you're in a formal church setting or not. God has given us the body of Christ. Talks about it in the Bible several times. We all have different gifts, but we're to work together. And there are people that are called to pray. There are people that. That's their ministry is prayer. And we need to be willing to work together as a team and not be so isolated. Have you seen that? I mean, it just seems like more and more and more we're just getting isolated, and we just think we can do it on our own. But we have the body of Christ for a reason. It's for that support. It's for that to be able to work together in many different ways. And one of the ways I believe that we're to work together is to support one another in prayer. That's one of the reasons I started the Godly Gain group on Facebook. It's a group for Christian authors, speakers, entrepreneurs, where you can get encouragement and support. You can join by going to godlygain.com and there have been several times I've posted prayer requests in there and I've seen an answer or almost immediately, like within an hour or two. It's been just incredible seeing that power of community and of the body of Christ coming together. Those are the three reasons I believe that you should have a prayer team. As a Christian author. But how do you do it? I was talking to one of my colleagues this morning, and she also does VIP coaching with authors, and she said one of her authors was, like, really struggling and having some technical issues and having some major problems. And she was like, well, you need to ask for prayer. And she's like, but I'm supposed to be the one that's to be encouraging people. I'm the one that's supposed to be helping and giving this positive message of ministering people through my book about hope. Isn't it going to be opposite of my message if I'm saying I'm having problems and I need prayer? No.

No, actually, it's going to allow people to see that you're real, you're a human, that there is a very real spiritual battle, that you need that support. It doesn't have to be just all about us. Sometimes it does take us to just be able to humble ourselves and to realize we all need help. But can you understand that mindset of how sometimes we get in that mindset of what will they think of me if I ask for prayer? Will they think that I'm less of a person or that I'm not really strong in my ministry or my message of my book? Sometimes that can happen, too. A lot of times are the lies of the enemy, too. So practical steps. The first thing that I did to form my prayer team was I put a call out on Facebook And I said, if there's any of you that really believe in what I do believe in my ministry, believe in the types of books that I write, because I write a lot of Christian living books that have a Christian message. If you believe in the type of ministry that I have and would be willing to pray for me on a regular basis, would you just comment or private message me and let me know? It wasn't like a huge number of people. It was maybe like five people responded. But you don't need very many. You don't need a thousand people. You just need a few really committed people. What I did is I took those names and I asked them to sign up to a subscriber email list. I use it for marketing my subscriber email list. Right now I have getresponse. There's mailchimp, aweber trafficwave. There's so many different types of things. But the reason I did this is that way everyone was in one list. I could send out one email. If they ever wanted to unsubscribe from my prayer team at any time, they can. It gives them that freedom. They're not locked into my prayer team forever and ever and ever and ever. They can opt out at any time. But then I have that small group, most of them are women. For me, then I can just send out one email and just say, okay, I really would appreciate prayers on this. And I can send out the specific topics or the specific things. I have a speaking engagement or I have this book coming up, or I have this thing going on. Could you please be praying for me? So I'm not saying that you're posting this publicly on social media all the time because that's the other thing someone said. But I'm going to look needy or, or like I'm always needing help. And there are times when you should be willing to put something out publicly. But I'm talking about having a private.

Small group that's a prayer team and prayer support people who are committed and willing to help you help, pray for you, pray for your writing, pray for your ministry, pray for those who will read your books. Pray for those that will accept the gospel, that will accept Christ through your books. Pray for those who will be at your speaking engagements. Those are the types of things that people can be praying for if we have a prayer team in place. So all you have to do, if you don't have an email subscriber list, you can get started for free on mailchimp. Set up a list and then ask, ask a few people or maybe you know that you have a few friends and just say, hey, I'm in the midst of a battle right now. I'm writing this book and these are the themes, these are the things, and this is how it will reach people. And I know I need more prayer support. Would you be willing to pray for me and support me in this way? So you can also reach out to people one on one now you don't have to set up an email list. That's the way I did it. I think it just makes the most sense. It's the easiest to manage, and then people don't feel locked in. You can also do a group text. Personally, I'm not a fan of group texts. I don't like being on the receiving end of group texts. And then it's just bombarding. That's another thing you could do in a split second if you're just in the midst of a moment and you know, okay, these are the five people that have signed up to be on my prayer team. You could just text them real quick and say, you guys, I need prayer right now. But I prefer email because it allows people to still get your message. They'll still get that prayer request, and it's on their terms. But you're able to have a private, small group praying for you. You know how powerful this is.

This is huge. For those that do not have this, even if you just have two people on your list, that's all you need. The Bible says, where two or three are gathered, I am there. We can be praying wherever we are. We're not limited by numbers. We're not limited by anything. And yet so many times we think, oh, but who am I to even ask people to be praying for me? Do it. I had two of my members this week have major, major technical issues. One was on formatting a book because I teach self publishing. One was on website stuff because I teach platform building and all of that. And they were having major, major technical issues. They're both in ministry. They both write Christian books that have a Christian message, a gospel message. I told them, I said, go set up this prayer team now. And I knew I wanted to do this just to give others the idea and to really encourage you to set this up and to not wait. If you're in the middle of writing a book, do it. You don't have to have a book published yet. Whatever stage you're at right now, believe me, you need this. You need that extra support. We need each other. We need the body of Christ. And that's one thing we do within authoraudienceacademy.com Every week I have a prayer thread where we pray specifically for you and in ways that whatever you're dealing with, with your books and your marketing and things like that, we pray for you. But I still recommend that you have your own private small prayer group. Tiffany says, I lost a book before when my computer crashed and I stopped writing for a long time. I was so upset. Yes, that is a classic reason that you need to have people praying for you. You need to have that extra layer of support and protection against the enemy because the enemy comes to what, steal, kill and destroy. He stole your manuscript. He destroyed it somehow. And so, yeah, she says, I email to myself every night now. Yes, have a backup. I teach that all the time. Have a backup, use Dropbox, use Backblaze, whatever you need to do, have backups because you never know what's going to happen. But my encouragement to you is if you are doing anything related to your faith in Christianity, if you're a Christian author speaker, if you're in ministry in any way.

Take action and form this small prayer team. I don't think there's any reason to not do it. We all need prayer. We all need support. And then commit to praying for others too. Don't just be on the receiving end, but also as the body of Christ, be committed to praying for others as well, because we need each other. If you would be interested, I would love for you to join our community@godlygain.com for Christian entrepreneurs. Or if you would actually want some coaching for writing your book and setting up your platform and marketing and all of that, you can join us@authoraudienceacademy.com we have a great community, very active in Facebook, and we are there as well to pray for you and to support you. So I hope that you guys have a great rest of your day and that you go and take action. Form a small prayer team and then start sending them regular updates. When you're getting ready to write or if you know you're going to have a writing date at the time where you're going to write, let them know and ask them to be praying. Praying against writer's block, praying against technical problems, praying against things that end up coming up and taking over that time, ask them to pray. If you know you're going to be speaking, ask them to pray. If you have a book launch, ask them to be praying. It just may be something that you're feeling discouraged and you don't feel like continuing on, ask them to pray and have people on your prayer team that you can confide in, you can talk to, that you can trust because that's so important. We are in this together. There is a very real battle and the enemy.

Wants to stop you. He wants to steal, kill and destroy. He wants to keep you from sharing the message that you have to share with the world. You. And I'm getting a little teary eyed and I have chills because I know I've seen it in my own coaching group this week. I hear it from authors all the time. There's a very real battle. I had one of my clients in Authoritus Academy just recently lost everything on her computer. She thought everything was backed up on an external drive and it wasn't. There's stuff like that happening all the time and sometimes it's life, sometimes it's not. And so let's be prepared. Let's not go into battle without the armor of God, without that prayer support, without that extra encouragement and without each other. Let's link arms together. We are stronger together than we are on our own. Have you ever heard the illustration of the sheep? When they're off and they're on their own, they're easier prey for the wolf. When we are isolating ourselves and we're not in community, we are more susceptible position for the enemy and those thoughts of discouragement and doubt and fear start creeping in. We need each other. That's my message for today. Reach out, don't delay. Reach out and ask for those people to join your prayer team. Because we need each other.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Author Audience Show. Connect with us online@authoraudience.com where you'll find all the resources mentioned in today's episode. While you're there, grab Shelley's free video training on how to write and publish your book using her Six Step Ascent method. Join us again next week to learn how to reach your audience with your message.