Managing My Prayer Lists

I’m trying out a new app for my iPhone that is helping me organize my prayer life and manage my list of requests. Echo Prayer Manager is designed to keep track of names and prayer requests—and then serve them up to you in a way that keeps you praying at various times during the day.

It can be hard to get through a long list of prayer needs during your daily quiet time. One of the great features of Echo is the ability to assign repeating prayer reminders throughout the day. I can schedule some requests for a daily rotation; others on a certain day of the week at a certain time. But there is also a feature that allows me to set times during the day when the app pushes notifications to my phone to pray for a request.

I’ve chosen to set hourly reminders throughout the day to pray. Then Echo randomly selects prayer requests and sends me an alert. If I’m at a place where I can quickly pray, I stop and take a few minutes to pray for the request.

When I want to take more extended time to pray, I can simply pray through my entire list that is again served to me randomly. When I go on a walk, I can use the feature that allows me to “swipe” through my requests as I walk and pray.

I’m enjoying being surprised at various times throughout the day when I’m notified to pray for a friend or family member—and I trust God is orchestrating that timing. By the end of the day I’ve prayed through my list.

Echo has a nice, clean look to it, with plenty of space to write more detailed requests. It can also organize requests with hashtags for family, church, health needs, etc. There is even a way to show your requests on a TV or projector, which is great for small groups.

There are plans to add an Android platform and ways to share requests with other Echo app users. You can learn more at the website: new.echoprayer.com.

CAROL MADISON is editor of Prayer Connect.