Begin with Prayer

What appeals to me most about using the BLESS App is the idea of building stronger community ties and being a blessing to my neighbors. I grew up in a very tight-knit neighborhood where everyone looked out for each other and have been missing that in my adult life.

Beginning with prayer is the first step to the BLESS practices and prompts you to think about your neighbors by giving you a daily prayer prompt to pray for them five households at a time. Once you have prayed for the set of households they will appear in your dashboard where it tracks how many times you have prayed for a household, listened to their specific prayer requests, Eaten with them, served them, or shared your story with them. There is also an option under the household information to mark whether or not they are a believer.

I have faithfully prayed for my neighbors at least once a week in the six weeks since using the app and am aware I need to be better at this especially since it only takes at most five minutes to go through the prayer prompt in the app or on the website and then select pray for all. You also have the option to pray for one household at a time if you want to do that and mark off the households individually.

 Using BLESS has been a personal challenge that I am enjoying. My personality is a mix of introvert and extrovert. I used to joke that I was an introvert who pretended to be an extrovert, the isolation during the pandemic taught me that I do genuinely like people and like being of service despite it being difficult for me to be the first person to approach someone in a social setting or just out and about. So that is something I am working to overcome. The app is encouraging me to work on this since building a community, especially, in our immediate neighborhood is important to my husband and me.

To get myself into a better habit of praying for my neighbors I am challenging myself to pray for them daily during Advent and I challenge you to do the same. Download the free BLESS App on your phone, computer, or other device. Set up a free account and be sure to select St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Maumee so that we can see our progress as a congregation as the month progresses.

 Signing up for the BLESS App is the hardest part. Once you have signed up, you will receive a daily email with the day's prayer and the five households in your neighborhood. You can either log in to the app or pray from the email and select done. It takes less than five minutes a day.

Please let me know if you have any questions about using the Bless App or if you would like to share any BLESS stories or experiences.