Trust.....

TRUST: (n) reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.

One of the biggest issues that seems to come up, time and time again when trying to establish a prayer shield, whether for the leader or the prayer person, is the issue of trust. Once trust has been broken, it's hard to recover - but recover we must! Without trust, the whole point of a prayer shield falls apart. Let me explain......

If a leader doesn't trust prayer people, then either they won't really share what they need prayer for, or they won't receive what the prayer people have heard from the Lord.
If prayer person doesn't trust leaders, then they won't submit what they are hearing from the Lord on their behalf, and thereby rob them of an opportunity to be encouraged or alerted to things, by the Lord thru them!
Either way.....broken trust, left unhealed, will ultimately cause a lack of functionality in a prayer shield.

Now..I know there will be people who say that just the fact a leader is getting prayer, should be enough. While I do agree that no ( good*) prayer is ever wasted, I think that by not working with a prayer shield, you may be getting some effect from their prayers, but as a leader, you are not getting the full effect, because you are not working with your team.

As a prayer person, you may be getting some relief for your prayer burden, by praying on your own, but you will never know the full encouragement of being a part of prayer shield because you don't get the encouragement of hearing how the words you've shared were effective or confirmational for a leader.

Remember too, when I am sharing about Prayer Shields, I am speaking about 'personal prayer shields'. Many well known ministries have large intercessory lists that receive prayer emails - this is not the same as a personal shield. These larger forms of prayer covering, while awesome, may not be able to cover topics that directly personal to the leader.

Stayed tuned for a little study on different types of prayer shields - figuratively speaking! ( hope I wet your appetite).

* I say this in response to the fact that not all prayer is said with a right heart or pure motives, so we have to be careful as prayer people that our own adgenda's don't creep into our prayer times for leaders.