August 7 we will be discontinuing the prayer plugin in our WP-EZ Website Builder. All sites currently using the prayer plugin will have it automatically replaced with a contact form.
This was a difficult decision because we believe prayer is such an important part of church life, and we love the concept of an online prayer management system.
Unfortunately, the “PrayBox” plugin we’ve been using has been getting hit by spammers more frequently lately. It lacks a good captcha or other measures to combat the spam, and its developer is no longer supporting or updating it.
We researched alternative prayer plugins, but could not find one that is good quality, well supported, and affordable.
We also did some research into how churches receive and distribute prayer requests. Less than 3% use any sort of prayer management system. The vast majority receive prayer requests from a variety of online and offline sources, and then email prayer requests either to the whole congregation or a prayer team. None expressed any discontent with emailing prayer requests or desire to switch to a prayer management system.
This is why we believe the simplest and best solution is to replace the prayer system with a standard contact form. Website administrators can email prayer requests to their congregations or prayer teams like 97% of other churches do.
All prayer data will be deleted August 7.
If you are actively using the prayer system in WP-EZ, please copy any active prayer requests from it into your own spreadsheet or document by August 6.
If you would like to use an online form that is customized for prayer requests, see our video tutorial on How to Create a Custom Online Form. (Custom form builder is a feature in the Gold and Silver web hosting packages.)
If you have any comments or question, post a comment or email us.
3 Comments
We stopped publishing a prayer request page several years ago due to confidentiality concerns as well as getting several strange requests which did not align with our doctrine.
Paul, is there any other prayer plugin that you recommend for WordPress?
Not right now.