With Web videos, prayer requests go global.

 

If you’ve been in church life for awhile, you might be familiar with something known as a “prayer chain.”  In an earlier form, a Sunday school class would provide a list of names and phone numbers to class members, so that when a concern came up, the first person on the list would call the second person on the list who would call the third person on the list – and so on – until everyone had been enlisted to lift the need in prayer.

 

That concept hasn’t changed.  Christians still want to share their prayer needs with others and give updates about answers to prayer. The use of Internet-based video technology, however, has opened up a way for those needs to go global within minutes, while also giving a more personal context to the requests.

 

“You get so much texture by watching the video,” said Bill Nix, president and CEO of Axletree Media, Inc., the developers of E-zekiel.tv. “If you go to E-zekiel.tv and you look at the prayer requests that are there, you will understand what I mean by that. You learn, you understand, you feel the need that is being put there so much more than just seeing text on a page.”

 

Internet video technology has played a large role in how the story of Katherine Wolf was told to a global audience – and continues to capture hearts and prayers nearly two years after she suffered a massive brain stem stroke.

 

Katherine is the daughter-in-law of Dr. Jay Wolf Jr., pastor of First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. As Wolf tells the story, in April 2008, Katherine and his son, Jay Wolf III, were living in Malibu, California, where Jay III was in his last month in law school at Pepperdine University. Prior to taking a final exam, Jay III stopped at home on a lunch break to find his 27-year-old wife vomiting and experiencing an excruciating headache.

 

“She didn’t realize that in the back of her head a little pipe had burst, and she was bleeding to death,” Wolf said. “My son discovered her just in time to get her to the hospital. They were able to give her a brain shunt just before she ‘died’, and they plunged her into a 15-hour operation.”

 

Following a surgery during which Katherine received 80 units of blood, she was given only a one percent chance to live. “In the middle of this horrible experience, the Internet came alive and people starting praying from all over the world,” Wolf said. “We fully expected Katherine to die. But the mercy of God prevailed. She lived.”

 

Later that week, Wolf’s teenage daughters made a video asking people to pray for Katherine, and they posted it on the Internet. “In no time, it had been viewed by over 20,000 people,” Wolf said.

 

The family made more videos. “We took one of the cameras with us to California, and we made a video right there in the courtyard of the UCLA Medical Center updating people that Katherine was against all odds making some progress and inviting the body of Christ to pray,” Wolf said. “Literally tens of thousands of people viewed these videos, and much more importantly they began to pray.”

 

The physical repercussions of Katherine’s brain stem stroke have been tremendous, but she has battled back in a slow and uphill recovery. She had to learn to swallow, to eat, to walk. Even now, none of these areas are easy for her. Her voice sounds different, her face is partially paralyzed, and her use of her right hand is limited. Even so, she and Jay III traveled from California the week of Christmas, and they addressed an Alabama congregation that had lifted them in prayer for 20 months.

 

“It’s still shocking that people care, frankly,” Jay Wolf III said. “We have short attention spans. Life is busy. For people to still be with us on this journey is almost more than we can bear. Because it is unbelievable. It gives us such encouragement on the walk we are experiencing right now.”

 

“I think that one of the main things we are learning through this very, very difficult time is that what’s true in the light is also true in the dark,” Katherine Wolf told the congregation. “Even when you almost die, I really think God can feel just as near to you as He does when things are good, maybe even more.”

Studies of American life today have suggested that social isolation is a growing trend, with Internet and mobile phones contributing to the problem. The theory is that because the interpersonal connections aren’t grounded in traditional social settings, they tend to be weaker. However, a recent survey from the Pew Internet & American Life project challenged part of that perception – that an increasing number of Americans don’t have anyone with whom they can discuss important matters.

 

The results of the “Social Isolation and New Technology” survey show that few Americans are actually socially isolated (only six percent have no one with whom they can share personal matters). Instead, the Pew research found that technological tools were actually creating larger and more diverse networks.  Among the findings:

 

    •    Internet users are 55% more likely to discuss important matters with someone outside the family; the figure is 45% for Americans overall.

 

    •    Internet users who upload photos to share online are 61% more likely to have discussion partners that cross political lines.

 

    •    Bloggers have a 95% higher likelihood of having a cross-race discussion confidant, while people who frequently use the Internet at home are 53% more likely to have a confidant of a different race.

 

Technology has certainly connected the Wolf family to networks they may have never known. When Jay Wolf introduced his son and daughter-in-law to a congregation that knew them well, he said, “I had a lady that I’d never met come up to me the other day. She hugged my neck until it hurt, and she said, ‘Do you mind if I call Katherine our miracle? Because I’m an owner. I’ve been praying for her. I’ve been reading her story and following it.’”

As Wolf’s family discovered, if you know someone in serious need of prayer, you can start telling the story online in only moments, while software and video-sharing sites guide you along the way. Here’s all it takes:

 

    •    Record a short message with a digital video camera. Web videos typically have a 10-minute limit; 2 -3 minutes is more common.

    •    Transfer the video to your computer. Camcorders often come with software and a USB cable that makes this simple.   

    •    Follow the instructions that lead you through saving the video to your computer.  

    •    Sign into a free video-sharing site and follow the instructions to upload your video.