The things I pray about

Here's an easy to memorize poem that will help young children learn and remember what the Lord's prayer teaches us to pray:

God and me (Address)
and thank-yous many (Thank you prayers)
I pray for the church (Church prayers)
and leaders plenty; (Prayers for leaders)
Things special to me (Special to me prayers)
and help me grow, (Growing prayers)
Then I pray for others (Prayers for others)
and his way to go (God's way prayers)
He hears my prayers (Closing)
and answers them.
And in Jesus' name
I say Amen.

This poem will be more helpful for some children than others. Some kids will benefit from it as merely a reminder of things to pray about, while others will want to use it as a template to guide them sustematically through their prayers.

A final comment. For some children casual prayer may be the more difficult of the two types of conversation with God. For other children chatty conversation with God will come very easily. It all depends on their personality type. It's crucial that we not try to force our children into a certail prayer mold. Although it's important to have our children grow in both casual and practical prayer, it should be expected that some children will put a far greater emphasis on one than the other.

Pray the Lords prayer part 2

AS WE FORGIVE OUR DEBTORS

1. Prayers for others: Jesus taught us to pray for others, not just those who've hurt us or wronged us somehow, but those in our acquaintance who've fallen short (as we ourselves so often do).

2. Example: "Could you help Ryan learn to cooperate with our teacher more? Also, please help Grandpa feel better. Thank you for answering my prayers for Cynthia; she's very nice to me now."

AND DO NOT LEAD US INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM THE EVIL ONE

1. God's-way prayers: Here Jesus was teaching us to talk to God about leading us, keeping us, and protecting us. We should pray for Gods wisdom, guidance, and direction so that we can go his was and not the way of the evil one.

2. Example: "God, could you please help me be wise and always make the right choices? I know that you love me and that you have good plans for me, so please keep me on your track."

FOR YOURS IS THE KINGDOM AND THE POWER AND GLORY FOREVER. AMEN.

1. Closing: When our children close, we should have them affirm that God has heard their prayers and will answer them according to his power and will.

2. Example: "Thank you for hearing and answering my prayers. I know that you'll do what's best for me and for the people I pray for. Thank you! In Jesus name, Amen."

When our children are very young, their prayers can consist of an opening and a closing with thank-you prayers and special-t0-me prayers sandwiched in between. As we take them further in the process, we can introduce more of the kinds of prayers represented in the Lord's prayer. The most appropriate time to introduce a new type of prayer from the Lord's Prayer is when life gives us an opportunity to talk and pray about something in our children's lives that falls into one of the prayer categories. For example, if an election is going on and our children are asking about the process, this might be a good time to introduce prayers for leaders.

Pray the Lord's prayer

A good way to teach our children about practical prayers and help them understand some of the basics is to teach them the Lord's prayer. When Jesus' disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, he responded by giving them the Lord's prayer:

Although it's a great prayer to memorize and use in its original form, what Jesus was teaching his disciples went far beyond repeating the specific words. Jesus in effect taught us through this sample prayer how to pray, what our attitude should be in prayer, how we should approach God, and what we should talk to God about.

Here's a brief breakdown of some of the things that we can learn and teach our children from the Lord's Prayer (found in Matthew 6:9-13)

OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN
1. The address: Our children can go to God as their loving Father. They can also expand their opening by talking a little about God being their Father.

2. Example: "Dear God, thank you for being my Father. Please help me have a good prayer time with you."

MAY YOUR NAME BE HONORED
1. Thank you prayers: We should help our children recognize, acknowledge, and thank God for his love and care. Affirming his goodness helps to strengthen their faith.

2. Example: "Thank you for loving me and taking care of me. You're really great."

YOUR KINGDOM COME
1. Church prayers: We enter God's kingdom when we become his children. Jesus was showing us that we need to pray that more people will hear his story and become God's children. That involves praying for church leaders and workers and missionaries.

2. Example: "Please help more and more people become your children. Let Uncle John know how much you love him. Give our church leaders wisdom so that they can help more people."

YOUR WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.
1. Prayers for leaders: It is God's wil that things on earth will work out according to his plan. So we pray for and about current events and world leaders as well as for our own leaders.

2. Example. "Please give our politicians and all the voters wisdom about how to lead our country."

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD
1. Special-to-me prayers: This is where Jesus taught us to talk to God about our needs, our desires, and our concers, about things that affect us and our lives personally. This is also where casual prayers come in.

2. Example: "Thank you, God, for giving me a good school to go to. I'm really having a lot of fun. Help me make good friends. Also, could you help me do my best at math and understant it a little better?"

FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS
1. Growing Prayers: The word debts here means the ways we've fallen short. Jesus was showing us that we need to talk to him about our personal growth, asking him to not only forgive us when we blow it but help us grow and learn to do things his way.

2. Example: "I know that doing things your way is best. Help me learn more from my Bible and understand it better. I'm sorry for yelling at my brother today; please help me remember to talk gently and help us cooperate better."

We'll finish the Lord's prayer next time.

What things should I be encouraging my children to pray about?

An easy way to explain to our kids what kinds of things they can and should talk to God about is to point out how they talk with us. We can divide conversation between us and them into two categories: casual conversation and practical conversation.

Casual conversation is talking about the weather and current events, about things that we're thinking or feeling. Casual conversation happens on the spur of the moment and can be humorous, informational, or just plain as-it-happens chat.

Practical conversation has to do with things that need to be talked about- things that are essential and/or beneficial to running a household, working together as a family, and having a well-functioning parent-child relationship. These conversations cover things such as coordinating family schedules, checking to see if chores are done, finding out how school is going, reviewing report cards, planning a vacation, and talking about something that one of the kids needs.

This illustration is a great parallel to prayer and can be very helpful in explaining the contents of prayer to our children. Prayer is made up of both casual conversation and practical conversation with God or casual prayer and practical prayer.

In casual prayer our children can talk to God about anything, anytime, anywhere. They can talk to him about how they feel, what they're thinking, what they're currently going through, what they're learning from the Bible, what their friends are up to, what their interests are. Every healthy relationship should have a casual conversation element that's comfortable and growing; the same is true of prayer. We should encourage our children to spend some time talking to God about their thoughts and about what's going on in their lives, just as they do with us.

In practical prayer our children should talk to God about the things he wants people to talk to him about. Many topics for practical prayer are outlined by God in the Bible, just as parents generally choose the practical conversation topics in a parent child relationship. For example, the Bible says that we should pray for those who have authority over us, that is, our leaders:

"First, I want all of you to pray for everyone. Ask God to bless them. Give thanks for them. Pray for kings. Pray for all who are in authority. Pray that we will live peaceful and quiet lives. And pray that we will be godly and holy. (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

For children, those in authority would include parents, teachers, church leaders, and political leaders. But praying for authority figures doesn't mean praying in vague generalities. Just as practical conversation in our home serves a specific purpose, so do practical prayers. In the verse above, we're told to pray for our leaders so that they may gain wisdom in making decisions that affect us, which is key to our living the life God wants us to live. Life, along with everything God created in and around it, works by prayer.

A good way to teach our children about practical prayers and help them understand some of the basics is to teach them the Lord's prayer.

Next time we will begin to break down the Lord's prayer for our children.

Praying with Preteens and Teenagers

When our children begin to want to pray entirely on their own, without us around at all, we should make sure that we're still available to them and that we help them structure their prayer time, perhaps scheduling that time to mesh with their bedtime. For example, if we want them in bed with the lights out at nine and they're currently spending twenty minutes reading their Bible and saying their prayers, they'll need to start the process by eight-forty.

It's expecially important that we continue to talk to our older children about our own prayer life and the things that we're praying about. That openness will encourage them to talk to us about how things are going with their prayers. We need to look for every opportunity to continue the prayer training process so that it doesn't stagnate. With that goal in mind, we should continue to help our children identify and celebrate God's answers to their prayers.

All the way through this training process we should let our children know things that they can pray about for us and things that concern our family. This will help them know that their prayers are real, that their prayers make a difference, and that we value their prayers. We need to remember to thank our children for their prayers and tell them how things turned out when the answer comes.

The foundation of prayer is a relationship with God. Helping our children learn about and grow in prayer isn't like teaching them math or science, we're helping them get to know and learn to trust God. Relationships can't be forced; they need to grow and develop over time. If we relax and enjoy the process, so will our children.

Praying with Grade Schoolers

A way that will help move our children progressively toward praying on their own is ping pong prayers: we pray a prayer; our child prays a prayer, we pray a prayer, and so on. We should of course still discuss ahead of time the special things that we want to pray about or for: Our children can then cover those things in their prauers, and we can pray for other things we didn't discuss to give them examples of the kinds of things that they can pray about that are new to them. This is a great way to start introducing our children to the different things they can and should be praying about.

When our children are ready, the next step is to move them on to praying their entire prayers on their own. Depending on the child, we could alternate nights; one night ping-pong prayers and the next night saying their own prayers.

We should be careful at this point that, for the sake of a little extra time to ourselves in the evenings, we don't race off and leave our children praying on their own too soon. We need to stay with them for a while and listen to their prayers, continually encouraging them in the training process.

There are ways in which we can continue the training even after our children are praying on their own. Nights when it's late or when the kids are particularly tired, we can offer to say their prayers for them. This gives us the opportunity to lead them forward again by example. As our children get older, they'll begin to understand more and more how to talk to God about their feelings and intimate thoughts. They may feel hindered from praying this way when we're listening. We should respect their privacy and allow them to say their prayers, or part of their prayers, quietly to themselves while we sit and wait. We should also take the time to answer and/or discuss any questions that our children may have.

Praying with Kids Just Starting School

At this next stage, after deciding together what should be prayed, we can have our children repeat the prayers after us. Again remembering that each child is an individual, we may find that some of our children want to and are ready to start saying their own prayers at this point. we should also be reinforcing the basics of how God wants to teach us and care for us and give us the best possible life, pointing out that one way we receive this care is by prayer, by talking to God about our lives. As in each one of these prayer stages, we should let our children know ahead of time that in a matter of weeks or after their next birthday (or at some other milestone of our choosing), They'll be bigger and it will be time to graduate to the next prayer step; and we should explain what that next step will be.

How to pray with Toddlers

At this stage of our children's growth we should probably continue to say their prayers for them. But we need to begin to teach them that this is their prayer time, not ours. We can spend a few more minutes praying with them and help them to close their eyes, to be still, and to concentrate on god, who is listening and loves them.

If you need help motivating your children to be still, try putting a little active play in their schedule. That way you can help htme be still by letting them look forward to the play time that comes next. Or if your children get a snack or drink before bed that they look forward to, put it right after prayer in the routine; then they'll be motivated to concentrate on prayer so that they can get to their snack. Don't worry about some restlessness; praise them and reward then when they're still, and continue to encourage them by telling them how much God loves them and wants to hear from them. The concentration will come eventually. Prayer time isn't a very good time to get all bent out of shape about discipline and about having your children respond to you perfectly. If prayer time becomes a battle, it will be hard for you to help your children look forward to it and want to learn more about it.

At this stage we should pray about things that emphasize God's care and love. Probably around the time our children are four or five years old, we can begin to involve them in deciding what we're going to pray for them. This confirms to them that these are their prayers and that eventually, as they get bigger, they'll say them for themselves, the you're getting-bigger-and-growing-up motivation. We can ask them what they'd like to pray about, giving them some suggestions from things that we know are currently of interest to them, things that happened that day, special events that are coming up, or events scheduled for the next day. Once they've agreed to one or two items, we should pray simply and briefly, again using words they'd use themselves, keeping the prayer upbeat and praising them for thinking of good things to pray about.

Praying with Babies

When our children are barely old enough to understand what we're saying, we should begin to pray with them each night before putting them to sleep- briefly, and in simple, clear language. We should pray their prayers for them, not our prayers over them. We might start out with something as simple as thanking God for something special about our child's day and asking him to help the child have a good sleep.

As our children begin to talk and take an interest in different things, we should keep our prayers short and change our prayers regularly to reflect what's going on in our children's lives, the things they're interested in. When our children are old enough to begin to understand, we can tell them each night what we're doing: that we're talking to God, who made them and loves them and wants to take care of them.