Prayer in Children’s Ministry

February 9, 2023 / by the Children’s Ministry Team

“Now I lay me down to sleep…” A bedtime prayer can be a wonderful place for children to begin to experience prayer for themselves.

But our East White Oak Children’s Ministry Team is committed to moving children along in their personal prayer lives. Jesus was a prayerful man and, as children Grow in Christ, we want them to know that God wants children to talk to Him; that prayer is more than asking God for things; and that God’s people have always prayed. But more than knowing about prayer, we want children to be pray-ers. So, our children’s ministry programs include times of prayer.

Below you will find a few prayer stories recently gathered from our Children’s Ministry Team…

• When one of the little girls in our Bible Fellowship found out that one of the boys in class had MANY more siblings than she did, her face crinkled in concern and she blurted out, “I’ll pray for you!”
• Prayer time has become the time when we are best able to get to know the kids in Children’s Church and when we are most consistently able to teach them a lot about God’s love. During prayer time we’ve been able to discuss things like adoption, death, missions, homelessness, and chronic illness.
• One of our kids asked that we pray for a classmate who he had never met because the classmate from the beginning of school had been sick and in the hospital. The children were faithful to pray. The sick child eventually was able to attend school a few days a week. Twenty kids prayed for a child that they had never met, and they saw God work.
  Our Children’s Bible Fellowship came up with an association for each child. The association is a helpful reminder to us to pray for each other. Here’s how it works…Haley loves hot sauce. So, whenever any of us sees hot sauce, we pray for her. We may pray that she would listen to the Spirit of God, or that she would be faithful in spending time with God, or that God would protect her. Since each of the kids has an association, we are always being reminded to pray for one another.
• Every Sunday morning our Children’s Bible Fellowship stands in a circle for prayer time. Not everyone prays out loud, but most do. It’s easy to get into a prayer “rut”…prayer for someone who’s sick or that God would help us have a good day. But one Sunday a girl prayed that Jesus would touch the hearts of everyone in the church! She asked Jesus to open their hearts, forgive their sins, and become their Savior. It’s no longer unusual for our kids to pray for anyone in the church who doesn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus.

What a blessing it is that our children are cared for and nurtured by such wonderful Christian men and women who comprise our Children’s Ministry Team. They are giving themselves to discipling the next generation of worshipers who are maturing in Christ.