Overflow: Prayer Ideas for Families

Today we conclude the prayer ideas for your children and families. I pray that this series has been helpful in making prayer less mysterious and more practical. Thanks to Shane Yancey again for sending along these ideas for prayer! He has lots of great ideas for youth on his website at http://www.nailscars.com/!


IDEAS FOR FUN FAMILY PRAYERS


Prayer Flash Cards:
The idea: create flash cards as visual reminders of who you are praying for as a family. Your small children can use those cards as a reference on who to pray for.

Before you start: Gather together pictures of family members, friends, and church leaders (especially your child's Sunday school teacher) and create a set of flash cards using the pictures. If you glue the pictures onto construction paper or large index cards you can have room to write requests beneath the picture.

How it works: Use your deck of cards to guide your time of prayer. There are several ways that you can do this. The basic way to pray would be to turn over each card and then pray as a family for the person who is on the card. You can also pass out the cards face down to each person in your family and then take turns turning a card over and praying for the person on the card.


Journaling Letters: (older kids)
The idea: Write down a prayer that you have for someone else in your family and then let them read it.

Before you start: Gather pens and half sheets of paper (because whole sheets can be intimidating) for each person in your family.

How it works: Sit everyone in your family in a circle. Then each person would write a prayer about the person sitting on their left. If you have never journaled a prayer before encourage your children to write down what they would say to God if they were praying for their person. Play some soft music while people are writing their prayers.

After everyone has finished pass your prayer to who it was about and then let everyone read the prayer written about them aloud.


Puzzle Prayers:
The idea: God has given us each a special gift to use in the church. This prayer uses a puzzle to pray for the people who are in our church.

Before you start: Find a wooden puzzle or other toy that requires the matching of shapes. (Like a toy with square, triangle, and star shaped holes)

How it works: Put the puzzle together with your child. As you do point out that God made everyone different and special. Tell your child that the church has many different people with different talents all coming together to glorify God. As you put in the pieces of the puzzle pray for our church and its leaders. Be sure to include your child's Sunday school teacher in your prayers.

After you have prayed undo the puzzle and start putting them back in again. This time encourage your child to pray a prayer similar to the one that you prayed.


Art Prayers:
The idea: Draw your praise instead of saying or singing it.

Before you start: Gather a bunch of age appropriate art supplies

How it works: For younger children ask them to draw some of the things that God has done or God has made. For middle to older children and for adults draw a picture that provides some sort of ending to the phrase "God is...". As a family let this art time be a fun time. After everyone has finished share your pictures with each other and voice a short prayer of thanks using the pictures as a guide.


Global Focused Prayers:
The idea: Help kids to remember to pray for people around the world by simulating what it means to be thirsty.

Before you start: Get a small bit of salt for each person to eat and a drink ready in the refrigerator.

How it works. Ask each person to eat some of the salt. After they do and ask for something to drink either tell them to go get something or if they are too young go with them and fix them a drink. After they come back point out that in many parts of the world children have to walk several miles every day to get water. That small thirst that you felt right then is nothing compared to the hunger and thirst that many children are going to bed feeling right now.

Spend some time praying. Thank God for what he has provided you and ask his protection on those people who went to bed hungry and thirsty tonight. Ask God to use you to help them.

If your child seems interested in ways that they can help out think about possibly sponsoring a child or getting involved in other aid organizations.


Lighted Prayers

The Idea: God has called you to join him on a journey or quest with Him. This is a hard road,
but he doesn't send you alone. He has called together a group of people to walk this
road with you—your Sunday school class. These are your traveling companions, the
ones who you lean on for strength and support when you are struggling.

Before you start: Figure out how many people are in your Sunday school class and get that same number of tea lights. You may want to collect candles for the people in your children's classes as well.

How it works: With a marker write the name of each member of
your class on a candle. For those of you with larger classes you may want to have
each candle represent a couple or have more than one name on a candle. As you pray for each person light their candle as a visual representation of your prayers.

If you have children be sure to do this activity in a dark room. Point out how the room gets brighter the more that you pray.