Summary

I will be researching and understanding how Facebook users use Facebook as a social group, living out a form of lived religion, prayer. Focusing more directly at how group prayer is lived out of Facebook, the way people are creating a new context for community by the way they lean on each other for support. Prayer in this context is focused on the wording and the openness that the group has towards one another and how they have leaned on each other for support with their problems. There are over two thousand people in each of the groups that I have been looking at and the reason that they are all on this one page is interesting. The belief in the power of prayer that is formed by the number of people asking for prayer on each of these groups, gives the assumption that if you post on this site your prayers will be seen and answered. Some of the strategies that I have used for looking at this case study is how frequent they ask for prayer, is there any praise, and what are the like and comment number on each post. I find these few questions help me understand who post, why they post and how often they post. People that seem to post more often are people who seem to get more likes or comments on their update that they post. So people post more often than others because they provide updates on their families or ask for continuing prayer. Why they post, well everyone has a prayer that needs to be answered and seeing people getting a response from other Facebookers give them hope that someone is listening and they feel like their prayer will be answered when they post. The way people write is always changing as well. Some people still keep it like a personal prayer to God and others act like they are talking to a group. Which one is better in the situation, could depend on how formal the group is or how the person feels comfortable to post and approach the group. With the examples that I have given before, I hope to show that this new community of prayer groups on Facebook as given people a place to request for prayer even if they do not have a home church.