Mike Wolanin | The Republic Ministry program consultant Stephanie Seniour demonstrates how to use the new prayer kiosk inside The Sanctuary Church in Columbus, Ind., Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025.
Utilizing a new technology from the Anderson-based company 247Prayer, The Sanctuary of Columbus has become one of the first churches in the state to install a prayer kiosk.
Continuing with The Sanctuary’s 24/7 prayer initiative started over a decade ago, church members are able to check in to the sanctuary at any time during the week for prayer through this system, in addition to seeing the prayer needs of others.
Since its installation last week, over 90 members of the church have utilized the kiosk, senior pastor Matthew Johnson said.
“… we really wanted our members to interact with each other with prayer,” Johnson said. “If you had a prayer need, you could log in and put it there so everyone who follows could join you for that prayer.”
Upon becoming a member at The Sanctuary, members receive a key fob that gives them access to the building 24/7 for prayer. Johnson said The Sanctuary has always been a house of prayer, but they don’t always have structured prayer. People instead come whenever they are available to pray, he said.
“It may be during their lunch break to pray a special need for their co-worker, maybe a family medical need and someone’s in hospice,” Johnson said. “It may just mean that they need peace in their mind and so the church is always available for that, and… it’s pretty overwhelming how many people are participating in active prayer throughout the week.”
It also allows for church staff to see how many hours are being invested in prayer on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis. In about a year’s time, they will be able to see how many hours were invested in prayer, but it’s not about the numbers or auditing members’ prayer time, Johnson said. Rather, he said it’s about unifying together for the needs of the community.
“We don’t keep track of members and how long they’ve prayed, that’s not the point,” Johnson said. “In fact people can log in anonymously, but this is a new company that just launched this kiosk and we thought it would be a great way of encouraging prayer on our campus.”
The kiosk was installed by 247Prayer, who just launched publicly in September, according to the company’s founder Jordon Frye. He and his small company originally wanted to build a system to track how many hours were spent in prayer at their church in Anderson, but not being able to find any that fit for them, they decided to build their own.
Only a handful of kiosks have been installed in churches around the state, including at Frye’s church in Anderson and at The Sanctuary. Johnson said he initially saw the kiosks and met Frye at a conference, but at the time, Johnson said had some functions he wanted to implement into the kiosks.
“… I actually called Jordan and I told him what I wanted and I was really thankful he actually got a hold of me and said, ‘everything you asked for, we’re actually working on,’” Johnson said. “And so when I saw his responsiveness, I decided to be one of the first ones to be a part of it.”
The kiosk is only available 24/7 to members right now, but non-members are welcome to use it during regular church hours. Johnson said the kiosk also serves as a great way for members to see who else is in the sanctuary praying during early hours of the morning.
Since its installation about a week ago, Johnson said it has warmed his heart seeing how transparent people are being in their prayer needs. He believes that the kiosk will help encourage prayer and accountability in prayer amongst church members. While The Sanctuary offers several resources for the community, he believes prayer is the best gift they can give.
“We can invest in other ways, we can contact the mayor and be involved in community activities, which we are involved and we help Love Chapel with their… food insecurity,” Johnson said. “So we have life groups, we have youth and kids and we have all the ministries, but we still feel like the greatest gift that we can give our community is prayer.”
