21 Point Prayer Guide for Singles and Young Adult Ministry

Below is a list of prayer points you can do as an individual, a small group, a Sunday school class, ministry, church, leadership team, etc. The goal is to simply pray for God, through His Holy Spirit, to provide solutions to meet the various needs of singles and young adults in our churches today. Instead of complaining, let’s praise God for what we see working and pray for the rest. This prayer guide can be done in one day or 21 points for 21 days or 21 weeks.

Note: We encourage any suggestions or comments by emailing Kris Swiatocho, the author, at swiatocho@gmail.com.  Feel free to edit to fit your church by putting in the names of your pastors and churches, leaders, teachers, your city, etc., so that it’s specific to those areas that need change. We do ask that you put a link back to www.TheSinglesNetwork.org or list the website at the end. Also, we suggest a follow-up meeting to discuss the changes you have seen and your next steps.
OPENING PRAISE AND PRAYER FOR MEETING
We praise God for:
  • Who He is to all of us.
  • Meeting our needs, providing existing ministry, and changing lives.
  • Opportunities to reach singles and young adults.
  • Retreats, mission trips, and conferences.
  • Online content and other resources geared toward singles and young adults.
  • Caring about each of us and not forgetting us.

We pray against:
  • The enemy’s efforts against this gathering of prayer.
  • His goal to steal, kill, and destroy our group.
  • Anything that would distract, divide, and discourage us.
  • Anyone who would try to cause issues.

SINGLE AND YOUNG ADULTS
We pray for:
  • Salvation.
  • Spiritual growth in faith.
  • Truth and revealed purpose.
  • Involvement in a healthy, Bible-focused church.
  • A heart to serve the church and community.
  • A desire to represent singleness in a positive way.
  • Guidance to minister to other single and young adults.

​We pray against:
  • The enemy’s lies to singles and young adults, claiming they will always be alone and never marry.
  • Lies telling believers they can’t be forgiven for past, present, or future sins.
  • Reminders of past mistakes and failures.
  • Doubt and despair that attacks the flesh, minds, and hearts of God’s children.

OUR PASTORS
We pray for:
  • Eyes open to the needs of single and young adults.
  • True understanding and their importance to the church.
  • Sensitivity, support, and understanding for those who desire marriage, but also toward those who prefer singleness.
  • Opportunities for singles and young adults to meet with pastors and leaders for honest dialogue, leading to more support and understanding.
We pray against:
  • The enemy blinding our pastors and leaders to the needs of single and young adults.
  • Seeds of doubt that could lead people to believe single and young adults have nothing to offer the church.
  • Lies accusing singles of causing divorce or division within the church.

SERMONS
We pray for:
  • The use of singles and young adults as examples of godly living, whether from Scripture—like Paul, Mary, Martha, and Jesus—or otherwise.
  • Balanced messages addressing all stages of life.
  • Sermons that make singles feel valued, included, and needed.
  • Opportunities for single and young adults to teach and share testimonials from the pulpit or in small groups.
  • Understanding from the pulpit down of the vital asset single and young adults are to the church, ministries, and the community.
We pray against:
  • The enemy’s efforts to exclude the needs of single and young adults from the context of sermons.
  • Satan’s tactics to make single and young adults feel unloved or unwelcomed in the church.

HOLIDAYS
We pray for:
  • Sensitivity to the needs and emotional difficulties singles and young adults face around the holidays, specifically Mother’s and Father’s days, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day.
  • Awareness of single and young adults’ specific needs during these occasions and prayerful efforts to meet those needs through messages, programs, events, and activities.
  • Assistance to those facing financial difficulties, raising children on their own, or dealing with loneliness during these holidays.
  • Singles and young adults to reach out and build community with other singles, young adults, and married couples during difficult times.
We pray against:
  • The loneliness many singles feel over the holidays.
  • Anything that could make single and young adults feel forgotten or excluded from church events and activities, which often focus more on traditional families.

CHURCH SUPPORT
We pray for:
  • Resources to minister to and grow single and young adult ministries.
  • Budgets to include guest speakers, conferences, and other events—including mission trips, plus funds to support those struggling to pay bills.
  • Adequate meeting spaces with updated sound and video technology.
  • Childcare.
  • Resources to educate and train leaders.
  • Access to counseling services.
  • Support single and young adult missionaries and those serving outside the church.
  • Resources to help singles and young adults build friendships that can lead to dating, engagement, and marriage, like Intentional Relationships for Singles and Boundaries In Dating.
  • Efforts to support para-ministries like Divorce Care, Griefshare, The Life of a Single Mom, Single Parent Missions, Arise, Financial Peace, Boundless, Celebrate Recovery, and Intentional Relationship Solutions, among others.
We pray against:
  • The enemy’s attempts to limit access to resources.
  • Ignorance in helping singles financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

CHURCH/MINISTRY STAFF
We pray for:
  • Experienced current and future staff who are willing to build single and young adult ministries within the church.
  • An understanding heart for this demographic, whether the staff member is married or single.
  • People who will listen, come alongside, disciple, train, and counsel singles and young adults.
  • Volunteers to lead/build a team geared toward singles and young adult ministry.
  • Church staff who willingly attend single and young adult events, get involved, build the community, and offer support.
We pray against:
  • Any hindrances to hiring pastors or directors who understand single and young adult ministry.
  • The enemy’s efforts to keep the needs of singles and young adults from being met.
  • Excuses to not hire someone to start/lead a singles or young adult ministry.
  • Attempts to wear out our spiritual leaders.
  • Miscommunication within the church.
  • A lack of support.

SINGLE MEN
We pray for:
  • Efforts to reach out to and mentor single and young adult men to be leaders, teachers, and mentors themselves.
  • Men’s ministries with a sensitivity toward single and young adult men of all ages and backgrounds, including single dads, who are often forgotten.
  • Ways to help single and young adult men know their value and importance and the role God has given them.
  • Single and young adult men to grow stronger in all areas of their lives, ready to stand and take responsibility.
  • Understanding single and young adult women who seek to be a part of the solution, interceding for single and young adult men while supporting and affirming them.
We pray against:
  • Attempts to destroy single and young adult men.
  • Ignorance, stupidity, unawareness, and excuses in ministering to these men.
  • Anything that would keep single and young adult men from salvation and growth in their relationship with God, or discourage them from attending church and a Bible study or small group.

TEACHING SINGLES
We pray for:
  • Messages that cover identity, conflict resolution, budgeting, blind spots, trust, friendships, anger, boundaries—and more in all their relationships, including romantic ones, from the pulpit down.
  • The inclusion of Bible studies, open discussions, Q&A events, panel discussions on topics specific to the needs of single and young adults, and safe places to build relationships.
We pray against:
  • The enemy’s efforts to steer messages away from important topics within single and young adults small groups and Bible studies.
  • Attempts to prevent the kind of good friendships that could lead to healthy dating and marriage relationships.
  • Feelings of unworthiness.
  • The belief getting married should be a single person’s sole focus.

SOCIAL MEDIA MINISTRIES
We pray for:
  • Online support from our churches and congregations.
  • Singles and young adults who will rise up to support, serve, and lead in this area.
  • Financial and spiritual protection.
  • Clear communication in the use of social media platforms to reach other singles.
  • God’s safeguarding over those involved in these ministries.
We pray against:
  • Being banned, deleted, or removed from social media.
  • Toxic individuals who would use these platforms to harm singles and/or the church.
  • Lies and gossip that use social media to twist the truth and harm vulnerable young people.

SINGLE MINISTRY EXPERTS
We pray for:
  • Congregations who value and support single and young adult ministry experts through financial support and prayer.
  • Respect and open dialogue between pastors/leaders and these professionals.
  • The Lord to raise up more experts in the area of single and young adult ministries.
We pray against:
  • The enemy’s efforts to destroy these experts, whether by bankrupting them financially or discouraging them to leave this vital ministry.

CONFERENCES, RETREATS, WORKSHOPS
We pray for:
  • Churches to regularly host conferences, retreats, and workshops on single and young adult-related topics.
  • Married leaders to get involved by serving and offering support.
  • Training to keep leaders excited and on fire for single and young adult ministry.
  • Events for singles and young adults to attend where they can grow in the Lord, have fun, and build safe friendships.
We pray against:
  • The enemy’s schemes to keep singles from meeting new people, building friendships, learning about God, and growing in their faith.

INREACH
We pray for:
  • Inreach programs that encourage single and young adults within the church to get involved in ministry.
  • Creative ways to reach single and young adults, whether from the pulpit, through the church website, bulletin, social media, or word of mouth.
  • An openness to develop a positive image of single and young adults within the church.
  • Divine connections.
We pray against:
  • Efforts to keep singles and young adults, and married couples from connecting, so they remain strangers, which prevents us from working together to strengthen the church.

OUTREACH
We pray for:
  • Healthy singles and leaders to develop strong ways to reach single and young adults in the community, including people who are:
  • Lost,
  • Saved but not attending church, or
  • Saved but attending a church that doesn’t have a single and young adult ministry.
  • A willingness to share resources and work with other churches to reach singles and young adults within the community.
  • Creative, successful ideas to connect with people in our parks, streets, shelters, prisons, and neighborhoods.
  • Training to lead someone to Christ and help them share their faith.
  • Short, local mission trips and longer ones outside the state or country.
  • Singles and young adults to see the need to reach the lost, encourage the saved, and equip leaders.
  • Open doors for ministry to our communities.
  • Direction to follow God’s leading rather than try to do outreach our way or based on preconceived ideas.
  • The guidance of the Holy Spirit in our outreach efforts.
We pray against:
  • Attempts to keep God’s Word from going out into the community.
  • Ignorance in how to share the Gospel.
  • Closed doors.

SINGLE PARENTS and those who are DIVORCED, WIDOWED, or SUICIDAL
We pray for:
  • Ministries focused on those raising grandchildren or fostering/adopting children.
  • The right resources and the desire to assist those with special needs kids.
  • Programs geared toward widows and widowers, regardless of age, so they can receive the help they need in their homes, with their children, and for mental or physical health issues.
  • Resources to minister to those who are separated, divorced, or getting divorced, and the children who may be affected.
  • Struggling singles and young adults to speak out, trusting their church is a safe place for biblical truth and healthy support.
We pray against:
  • The enemy’s efforts to wound those already hurting and his schemes to draw newly separated or divorced individuals into other relationships too soon.
  • Singles and young adults having sex outside of marriage.
  • The enemy’s mental and emotional attacks.

MENTOR/DISCIPLE RELATIONSHIPS
We pray for:
  • Faithful believers who will come alongside single and young adults and mentor them in their faith.
  • Resources and programs leading to spiritual growth immediately following a person’s salvation decision.
  • Those we have discipled to, in turn, lead others to Christ with a desire to disciple and mentor them.
  • An in-depth knowledge of spiritual truth to rebuke the devil’s snares.
We pray against:
  • Attempts to keep new believers’ immature in their walk with Christ.
  • Doubts regarding salvation and the fear it could be “lost.”

BOOKS/STUDIES
We pray for:
  • Authors who write and develop material for single and young adults, and publishers to continue to support and publish these products.
  • Resources to get into churches and their ministries—and into the hands of single and young adults—to encourage, support, and educate.
  • Church leaders and members to seek out these materials to learn more about single and young adults.
We pray against:
  • The enemy’s attempts to quiet the voices of writers and developers of single and young adult resources and prevent them from reaching the churches and singles who need them.
  • A lack of resources.

MARKETING/PUBLIC RELATIONS
We pray for:
  • Creative ways to reach single and young adults through items such as printed material, magnets, t-shirts, pens, etc., as well as through the use of LCD screens in our churches, websites, and social media.
  • Church websites containing helpful information, e.g., photos, calendars, and other resources.
  • Opportunities to work with TV, radio, and online podcasts, providing connections to start and grow single and young adult-focused ministries.
  • Finances to cover these efforts.
  • The church to see and promote the value single and young adults bring to their community rather than viewing them as a problem to deal with.
We pray against:
  • Deterrents to reaching the single and young adult community.
  • Technological limits or a lack of resources.
  • The spreading of lies about single and young adults, singles ministries, and the importance of both to the church.
    ​
EMOTIONS
We pray for:
  • Courage of singles and young adults to talk with their pastors and leaders about their needs.
  • Insight offered to the church out of kindness and careful thought rather than from a place of anger.
  • Hearts willing to serve, tithe, and be obedient to pastors/leaders despite not always feeling welcome, understood, or valued.
  • A longing to work for God, not man.
  • The faith to constantly go before the Lord in prayer, looking for guidance in how to serve Him and His people.
  • Protection for those confused, hurt or wanting to leave the church. Give them the courage to speak with their pastor first rather than gossip or complain, and grant the pastor a heart of understanding to listen.
  • Strength to stand firm in biblical truth.
We pray against:
  • Words from the enemy that would belittle, scare, or push away single and young adults from the church God called them to.
  • Attempts by the enemy to exploit the weaknesses and fears of single and young adults.

FORMER SINGLES
We pray for:
  • Married couples to feel called to start a ministry to single and young adults or serve an existing one.
  • Honest conversations with pastors and leaders about how they can help.
  • Guidance and direction in educating the church congregation about single and young adults to become part of the solution to minister to this demographic.
  • God’s blessing on the married people already serving in singles ministries.
We pray against:
  • The enemy’s efforts to prevent former singles and young adults from serving in singles ministry.
  • Any schemes the enemy might use to blind spiritual leaders to the needs of singles and young adults in their congregations.

IN CLOSING
We pray for:
  • Wisdom in knowing what our part should be.
  • Guidance in determining how we can be part of the solution.
  • Ideas for reaching out to and encouraging single and young adults in their faith.
  • Hearts ready and prepared to take the next step.
From Kris Swiatocho, Director:
For years people have asked me what has happened to singles ministries in our churches. Why does it seem the church and the pastors have forgotten single adults? Well, there are many reasons for their questions, but the bottom line, it's spiritual warfare.  So please make a commitment to pray through these points, personally, in a group, send to your pastor and leaders. Thank you!
​>>Read More About Kris
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Phil 4:6