<\/a>Our weekly children\u2019s session had just finished and it was time to go home.\u00a0 The children were ready to grab their snacks and head out the door.\u00a0 We normally ask who wants to pray our dismissal prayer,\u00a0 and I found that the hands that go in the air tend to be the same children every week.\u00a0 In an effort to be fair I do choose a different child each time, but the majority of the hands still are not raised.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Most children will learn about three prayers or what some may call a prayer.\u00a0 The Lord\u2019s Prayer in St. Matthew, \u201cNow I lay me down to sleep\u2026\u201d used before going to bed, and a simply verse recited before eating dinner.\u00a0 So often we focus on the lesson or song, but we miss the importance of getting children to focus on talking to God. Think about it. When you have a relationship with someone, you talk to the person. It’s hard to imagine a wonderful, close relationship where the two people never talk or rarely speak to each other.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Children’s prayers need to be more than asking for blessings on their food or begging for help in a crisis. Children need to spend time with God as they learn about, listen to, and talk to Him. As we encourage children to have a real relationship with the Lord, we must lead them to talk regularly with Him.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ages 3 – 5<\/strong>
\nDo you remember the first time you ever heard a child, any child, pray? Sometimes there aren’t words to describe the innocence or the simple faith heard in the few words uttered out loud by children. Even a simple “Thank you, God, for my toys,” moves the heart of God.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Ages 6 – 9<\/strong>
\nThey read! They write! They do long division! Is there anything these children can’t do? Actually many struggle with praying on their own. This group has many questions; How do I use this thing?, What will my friends think?, What do we believe?<\/span><\/span>
\nAges 10 \u2013 12<\/strong>
\nBy age 12, most children reared by Christian parents and taught by Sunday school teachers know that God loves them and Jesus died for them. They also know that prayer is a special relationship with God. They’ve probably also learned that prayer is a two-way talk with Jesus. Prayer may’ve become as natural to them as breathing, eating, and sleeping — an essential part of each day. However some in this group may have never spoken to God other than when the minister says \u201c And the church said Amen\u201d.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Prayer habits that last a lifetime are most often formed while they are children. This is why it’s so critical to teach children how to pray. As with most disciplines, prayer is caught more than it’s taught.\u00a0 Please take time, develop a lesson simply teaching your children how to pray.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prayer habits that last a lifetime are most often formed while they are children. This is why it’s so critical to teach children how to pray. As with most disciplines, prayer is caught more than it’s taught. Please take time, develop a lesson simply teaching your children how to pray.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-church","category-4","description-off"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogic.org\/childrensministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogic.org\/childrensministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogic.org\/childrensministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogic.org\/childrensministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogic.org\/childrensministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogic.org\/childrensministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1688,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogic.org\/childrensministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions\/1688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cogic.org\/childrensministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogic.org\/childrensministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cogic.org\/childrensministry\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}