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! 

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.

Here's an idea: Prayer Board

One of the most wonderful things to come of this prayer journey with kids is that one of my teachers, Michele went to Come to the Fire (the prayer conference), and as a result has made prayer time a priority in her classroom.

She made this her own by purchasing a white board, a jar and rocks.  The kids go to the adults right before class time, as they are visiting in the fellowship hall, and ask them for prayer requests. They write the prayer requests on the white board, and then at the beginning of class time, they choose one that they want to pray for and then pray together.  The kids may not be comfortable praying out loud, so in that case, one of the adults prays for their request.

The adults will tell the kids when the prayers are answered, and they get to put a rock in the jar to represent an answered prayer.  It's so cool how the adults will tell the kids about their answered prayers, and thank them for praying for them.  I love it that the adults are taking the prayers of the children seriously instead of belittling them, or talking down to them.

Setting Up the Prayer Journal

So, the spiral notebooks were to become the prayer journals for for my kids.  This is how I set them up. 

Either you or the kids themselves can label the pages like this:
Prayers for Me
Prayers for My Family
Prayers for my Church
Prayers for my Friends
(you can make more categories as you think of them or they fit into what you're doing.)

• For children who are not yet writing, let them draw pictures of their prayers. 
• There will be some kids who want to spend a LOT of time with their journals, and then some that don't really enjoy it.  That's why it's important to vary your prayer times to make sure that you're reaching all the different learning styles with your prayer time.
• The children (especially the little ones) may want to show you their pictures they've drawn and explain to you what they are.
• You keep the journals in your classroom.  It's important that the kids feel safe to write whatever they want in the journal so they can express what's in their hearts there.  I would discourage parents from reading them or letting the kids take them home.

I Heart Spiral Notebooks!

I do! When my children are cleaning out my home as an old woman, they won’t find a collection of newspapers or old magazines; there won’t be shopping bags or Tupperware; but they’ll probably find lots and lots of spiral notebooks.

During the summer, when all the school supplies were put on sale, I was delighted to find out that a local store had spiral notebooks on sale for a nickel! I went as quickly as I could and bought an entire case! I happily put them in my trunk where they stayed for about two months—until Come to the Fire.

So as the Lord was guiding me to what I should do with the kids, he reminded me of the case of spirals in my trunk and told me that I was to give every child one.  So that's what I did!

We began that day to journal our prayers as a group. Each time, they spread out around the room and write in their journal quietly and reverently. We’ve done this for a year now. The Lord has given me creative ways to pray, and the kids remind me about their prayer journals if we don’t get them out regularly! They’ve prayed incredible things, and some of them have had strong conversations with the Father, praying with a freedom that almost takes my breath away! I’ve learned things about faith from these kids; they’ve seen answers to prayer and are readily giving God the Glory!

I will probably always love spirals, but now they have a whole new meaning for me!

Come to the Fire

The Lord spoke to me about praying with kids at a conference.  Come to the Fire has been a meaningful part of the last few years of my life. I have to admit I was skeptical at first about attending. I wasn’t interested in another women’s conference with a parade of speakers meant to entertain, taking the listener through emotional highs and lows without much substance in-between.

That’s SO not what I found at this conference! The first year I attended was incredible and a story unto itself, but the story I tell here is about the second time I went to the conference.


One of the speakers, Beth Coppedge told of her daughter having a prayer group for young girls. As the story unfolded, the Holy Spirit began to speak to me about the children to whom I minister. Then, alone with my thoughts on the plane trip home, he began to give some legs to what he wanted me to do.

First, I was to go home and begin praying with the kids in my church.  Not just saying prayers at the beginning and at the end of our times together, but teaching them to pray. 

I began to think about resources I'd seen on the market about prayer with children, and couldn't really come up with more than a handful. 

Little did I know that his plan for praying with kids would start in the trunk of my car! 

I'll explain that later, but would like to invite you to check out the website mentioned above, Come to the Fire.  What I've heard there and the way the Lord has spoken to me through these times of getting away and being with him has made such a difference in my life!

so here's the thing

I want to share with you what I've been doing with the children in our church for the last couple of years as I've focused on prayer.  I've been a children's pastor for lots of years, and I can't remember a time in my ministry when I've had more fun or learned more!

It's been a couple of years since this story/journey/adventure began.  So I'll try to remember and relay what we've done.  You know how they always say write it down or you'll forget?  I SO wish I would have started writing all this down way earlier than now!

Oh and I almost forgot!  I love ideas!  If you have ideas of how you've used prayer with children, please share them!