Teaching Students to Pray

If we want kids to know God, not just know about Him, we need to teach them to pray and we need to pray with them. There are no worksheets about God, there are no stories about Him, that will teach as well as when your students talk to God, listen to God, and begin to know His heart.

"It's like me and President Obama.” nine-year-old Jamar told me. “I've seen him on TV lots of times. I've heard my parents talking about him. But I've never really talked with our president, so I don't really know him."

Exactly right, Jamar!

Kids need to learn that they can talk with God just like they talk to Mommy, Daddy, or a best friend. They need to realize that God is there and listens to what they have to say. He never puts them on hold or plays a recorded message. God always listens, whether they are on the playground, at a friend's house, in the car, or at church.

But how do we teach that to them? Well, here are a dozen suggestions. I encourage you to try one or you may be inspired to come up with your own method.

• Tell them a time that you prayed and received the answer in a surprising or dramatic way. Hearing how you talked to God and how He answered you makes it more real than just reading a story in a book.
  
  
• The next time a child comes to you with a problem or worry, instead of saying, "I'll pray for you," do it—right then. Even if it is a short prayer, you will be showing that God wants us to cast our cares and concerns on Him and pray about everything and at any time.
  
  
• Talk about the news. Ask each child to come up with a concern that they could pray about. There are no shortages of devistatig events in the world or around their own home town to pray about. Then take time to pray for those things.
  
  
• One of the first ways kids learn about prayer is hearing adults giving thanks in prayer. Moms, dads, teachers, and other significant adults need to give thanks in prayer. First thing you know, the kids are thanking God for Mommy, Daddy, a puppy, new shoes, toys, eyes, ears, nose, recess, their school. Kids thank God for the strangest things! And it is not only the little one that grows spiritually by this. Hearing a child's simple prayers, causes adults to remember the blessings in their life, too.
  
  
• Sometimes we hear kids say, "There's nothing to pray for," or "Prayer is boring." To get out of these ruts of prayer, use prayer targets and making prayer active. One teacher used a game called "Musical Prayers." She put a chair for each student in a circle. Taped to each chair was a prayer target. Everyone walked around the chairs as the music played. When the music stopped, each pupil sat in the nearest chair and prayed for that need.
  
  
  Another classroom uses an inflatable world globe and passed it around the class while music plays. When the music stops, the person holding the globe chooses a country and prays for the children in that country to know Jesus.
  
  
• Take your class on a prayer walk. Walk around your neighborhood and ask God's blessing and salvation on each family. Pray for the children in each home. Or walk down the hall in your school and pray for each classroom. Children are terrific prayer walkers because they enjoy movement and being "on site" makes the prayers more meaningful.
  
  
• Let them talk to God in different postures: sitting, standing, kneeling, with bowed head, or gazing upward. Teach them they can even pray when they are walking,  marching, or riding their bike.  Allow your students to choose the posture that is appropriate for the situation.
  
  
• Praying a prayer of blessing on a child's life can bring reassurance, comfort, and hope to their heart. Pray for protection and peace. Thank the Lord for something specific - a gift, talent, or quality in the child. You can use a Bible blessing such as Psalm 5:12 or Numbers 6:25 or speak from your heart. A teacher might select one student each day and pray a blessing on them. Let the children pray a blessing on their teacher, the principal, or the pastor.
  
  
• An important part of prayer is simply learning to say, "Thank You, God." Fill a small box with slips of paper. Encourage students to write or draw pictures of things for which they are thankful. Ask each child to say a sentence prayer, thanking God for the blessing they have named.
  
  
• Keep a notebook of answered prayers. Some teachers make it a scroll and add things to it when their students see answers.
  
  
• Contact missionaries through your church, conference, or union by e-mail and find out what they need. Or ask for the name of a student in their school that your kids can pray for.
  
  
• At one school, the teacher made a list of all of the other schools in that conference. Each week they prayed for one of the schools and wrote a letter to that school to tell them they were the target of their prayers. The return letters were posted on a “Prayer Wall” where students could see how prayers work.

As you try different ways of connecting with God, your students will learn that prayer is one of the greatest adventures in life. Help them to know they can call on the God of the universe and they will hear from Him. Jeremiah 33:3 says: "Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and wondrous things you do not know."