Praying in Color (week 2)

Week 2 found the kids bringing in Praying in Color projects from home.  I gave them the option to complete or work on new drawings at home.  I even found one taped to my office door with a note explaining who it was from. 

Our art wall is getting a little bigger each week.  I love this project! I love that this provides a way for kids who may not be able to write out their prayers (like in our prayer journals) a way to express themselves in prayer.  There are those kids who do not love the prayer journals.  They participate when we write in them, but I've seen those kids really enjoy this project!

This picture is so strong!  I have found a young artist with great talent here!  This young man was engaged in this activity as he's never been in anything else. 

Berlin is our sponsor child from Guatemala.  The kids bring in their pennies and dimes and dollars to send money to her each month.  The boy who drew this has a real burden for Berlin. Once he gave all of his birthday money to send to her.

This one is funny and one of my personal faves!  Haha...ya think?  My computer is wearing out.  Each Sunday during Children's Worship we have to say a prayer that my computer will work so I can show them the video segments that go along with our lessons.  We had extra time Sunday because the service ran long. This boy asked if he could Pray in Color, so I gave him the supplies he needed and he went to work.  He didn't want me to come near him while he was working on this.  He shushed all the other kids from giving me any kind of hints as to what he was praying for.  He was sparkly-eyed and excited when he showed me his Prayer.  It was awesome! It's awesome to know that he was able to identify a real need and take it to the Lord. 

Praying in Color (week 1)

This Lenten season, I wanted the kids to be able to participate in a special way.  My focus was about finding a way for them to experience Lent through prayer.  Good old google helped me out! I found this cool website: prayingincolor.com and there it was!

You can go to the webiste to see for yourself, but in short, Praying in Color involves doodling your prayers.  You can write words that God is bringing to your mind to pray for whether it is people, situations or whatever.  Then as you're praying, you doodle.  Whatever medium you choose is totally up to you! Each stroke of your pen/marker, etc represents you giving that word (person/situation) to God.

So I created a Praying in Color gallery in the hallway to showcase their prayers.  Here are the results so far!

Here's the wall as it begins...

I gave them the choice of praying a scripture, which this student did above.  They are praying for Missy, in our church who is awaiting a liver transplant.  The verse goes right along with what is being required of her in this waiting period...the Strength of the Lord.

I told them that they could pray about whatever they chose on a blank piece of paper.  This student is praying for their family.  It's hard to see, but in the blue circle in the middle is God.

Here's another student praying for their family.

Is this cool or what?  When we teach kids that they can pray anywhere or anytime...this is another example of what that means!  I've discovered some really talented kids, and can't wait to tap into that in the future!  I am so excited to see this wall of art grow each week and what the Lord will do with this unique way to pray! 

Valentines Prayers

Two years ago for Valentines, I got enough heart cut outs for all the adults in our congregation.  The kids in our church are always in the sanctuary for the first Sunday of the month.  So on the first Sunday in February, as each adult entered the sanctuary they were given a heart.  When I got up to speak, I instructed them to write a prayer request on the heart that the kids could pray for each time they came to church during the month of February. The prayer requests were varied from requests for marriages, unsaved children, jobs, health and many more.  This is one of those times I was surprised by how serious the prayer requests were.  It was such a strong message to my heart that the adults trusted the kids with their prayers!

So we prayed just as we promised.  Each time we met, I gave each child about 10 requests and they went somewhere on their own to pray through the requests. 

Last year at Valentines, I was surprised that the kids themselves remembered this exercise and asked to do it again. 

If you have kids who aren't reading well yet, have an adult helper read through the requests with them and then they can pray. It's hard for me to describe this, but one of the sweetest things I've ever experienced was a boy named Silas sitting in his teacher's lap and she would read the request, he would close his eyes and pray it, and then when he was finished say, "ok," and she'd read the next one.  When he worked through his first 10 requests, he jumped off her lap and ran up to me and asked me if he could have more.  By this time both the teacher and I were wiping our eyes.  It was precious.

Kids can lead the way in your church in praying for others, and model how it can be done.

Praying Out Loud

A big hurdle to prayer with children is praying out loud.  (Really, if we were honest, it's a big thing for any of us!)  I think it's important to keep in perspective that since we are all different, some kids will like it, some kids will not.  I would caution against forcing anyone to pray out loud. EVER.

I think the group of people praying together, whether it's adults or children, needs to be very comfortable with each other, and probably small.

I had such a situation in a classroom last night.  It was a small group (under 10) of kids, and to begin I asked for prayer requests and wrote their requests on the board.  (Old school, huh?)
Mandy-get well
Bobby-make good choices
Mrs. Barnes-needs to be nice
Julie's dad-needs a new job
Ned-hurt his leg

Then I asked the kids which request they'd like to pray for.
Mandy-get well (Joy)
Bobby-make good choices (Bailey)
Mrs. Barnes-needs to be nice (Alyssa)
Julie's dad-needs a new job (Alyssa)
Ned-hurt his leg (Conner)

So we started out and went through the list.  Some prayed a lot, some said 5 words.  Some wanted my help, they wanted to participate, but weren't sure how to do it.  Some didn't want to pray out loud.

It touched my heart that the kids requesting prayer for parents wanted to pray for them.  We know that parents (believers) pray for their children, and may have even heard our name spoken before the father in prayer by a mom or a dad,  but to have that reversed, for those sweet children to speak their parents names in prayer was powerful. 

I have to tell you that listening to them pray is humbling.  These children are not saying storybook prayers.  They pray with authority and sensitivity that can take your breath away.

Before we go any farther...

I want to say again/point out that some kids will REALLY groove on prayer.  Some kids will not enjoy it.  That's not to say that they really don't love Jesus, or that they don't want to grow as a Christian.  As you spend more time with your students in prayer, you'll find different ways to pray, and discover something for everyone as their prayer life develops.

Pictures of Family

Invite the kids to bring pictures of their families to put in their prayer journals.  When you are having them write in their journals, this becomes one of the pages that they can look at and say prayers for family members.  Whatever pictures they want to bring is ok.  Make sure that parents know that they will not be getting the pictures back however.

Praying For the Grownups

One Sunday, we took the kids up to the foyer during the service and had the kids pray for the grownups as they were worshiping.  We are fortunate in that our sanctuary has windows across the back, so the kids could stand at the windows and see the adults.

We prayed together before we left the children's worship room that God would point out an adult that they were to pray for.  If that person was their parent, that was fine, but most of them ended up choosing another adult.  We took our prayer journals with us and a few at a time, they stood at the windows until they felt like they had been given direction as to which adult to pray for.

Most of them came to me and let me read what they had written, and as always, the responses were varied:
...God please help the lady in the blue shirt to be healthy.
...Please give the man in the sweater a strong marriage.
...Please help the lady sitting by herself not to be lonely.
...Dear Lord, please help the old man to live a long time and for me to get a chance to be his friend.

There were many more, but you get the idea.  This is a page in their prayer journal, so they see this often and they can pray for them over and over.