Prayer for kids in school

One of the best ways you can prepare your children this year as they go back to school is through prayer. And praying Scripture over them is one of the most powerful ways to pray.

Here are five back to school prayers you can pray for your kids and grandkids:

1. Prayer for Peace 

Lord, I pray that my kids (grandkids) will experience the peace of God this year that exceeds all understanding. I pray they will not worry about things they cannot control, but that You will guard their hearts and minds and keep them trusting in You. I pray they will not only enjoy the peace of God, but peace with God. I pray they will develop a spirit of gratitude and thanksgiving as they look to You daily for their needs. I pray that You will give them the capacity for joy that bubbles up from Your peace.

(Isaiah 26:3; Philippians 4:6-7; Romans 5:1)

2. Prayer for Protection

Lord, I pray Your emotional, physical, and spiritual protection over my kids (grandkids). Keep evil far from them, and help them to trust You as their refuge and strength. I pray You will guard their minds from harmful instruction, and grant them discernment to recognize truth. I pray You will make them strong and courageous in the presence of danger, recognizing that You have overcome and will set right all injustice and wrong one day. Help them to find rest in Your shadow, as they live in the spiritual shelter You provide for them. Let them know that the only safe place is inJesus,and that their home on earth is only temporary.

(2 Thessalonians 3:3; Psalm 46:1; John 17:15; Psalm 91)

3. Prayer for Purity

Lord, I pray that You will create in my kids (grandkids) a clean heart and that You would constantly renew a right spirit within them, keeping their thoughts and actions pure and motivated by love. Guard them from temptation, and let them know You are always faithful to give them a way out and help to endure. May the words of their mouths and the meditations of their hearts always please you and edify others.

(Psalm 51:10; Matthew 5:8; 1 Timothy 1:5; 1 Corinthians 10:13; Psalm 19:14)

4. Prayer for Passion

Lord, I pray that my kids (grandkids) will develop a passion for the things of God. I pray they will hunger and thirst for You and Your Word and will love You with all of their heart, soul, and mind. Give them compassionate and generous hearts to love others as much as You love them. I pray they will always work and study with excellence, but that You will help them desire a servant spirit of greatness, rather than a worldly lust for success. I pray they will fall in love with Jesus over and over again.

(Psalm 42:1; Matthew 22:37-39; John 13:34-35)

5. Prayer for Perspective

Lord, I pray that my kids (grandkids) will develop an eternal perspective and purpose, not an earthly one.  Help them to see life–and every challenge–through Your eyes, eager and unafraid to share with others the good news of Jesus wherever they go. I pray that they will set their minds on things above, not just what’s going on here, and that they will be rooted and grounded in Your love. I pray they will come to understand the extent of Your own love for them–that it surpasses all the head knowledge they will acquire in school. I pray they will be filled up with You from morning ’til night.

(Galatians 2:20; Matthew 28:18-20; Philippians 1:21; Colossians 3:1-2; Ephesians 3:17-20)

Other Prayers for Your Kids

These are only sample prayers, and hopefully easy ones to remember. They are by no means exhaustive. Find your own Scripture promise or principle and pray those things daily for your kids or grandkids. But don’t confine your praying to the first few weeks of school. Your children and grandchildren need your prayers all year long–as long as you or they live. It’s the best protection You can give Your children or grandchildren! When we pray Scripture, God listens! And we can always know those prayers are in His will.

It’s Your Turn

What will you pray for your kids (grandkids) as they go back to school? Share your comments with us.

*For more from Rebecca, please visit www.rebeccabarlowjordan.com. To sign up for Rebecca’s new encouraging blog/newsletter, or to purchase her newest devotional books from Zondervan – Day-votions™ for Women, Day-votions™ for Mothers, and Day-votions™ for Grandmothers – please click here

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Prayer:  Talking to God with Your Hands

This children’s message was originally written for a Christian School chapel of 1st – 6th graders.  It teaches the basic elements of prayer and encourages children to establish prayer as a habit in their own lives.  What I’ve written below would be a 15-20 minute presentation, but you can extract the main points for a children’s sermon on Sunday morning. You could also add some additional content for a children’s church lesson.

We’ve also posted some prayer coloring pages for kids. That might be a good activity to add to this Bible lesson.

(Ask the following questions):

• Does anyone here like to talk on the phone?
• Do any of you talk on the computer with emails, IM, or Skype?
• Who do you like to talk to and what about?
• How many of you have cell phones?
• How many of your parents have cell phones?  Do they get upset if they lose their phones?

Talking with people is important to us!  We make sure that we can call others whenever we want.  We also make sure people can reach us wherever we are.

So if talking to people is easy and we do it all the time, why is it so hard to spend time talking with God?

(Invite responses such as:  We get busy.  We don’t see Him all the time so we forget.  We don’t know how.  We might question whether God is really listening.  We might think our problems are too small.)

Why is it important to talk with God?

1. God wants us to know Him.
2. God really does answer prayer.
3. God loves us through prayer.
4. We love God through prayer.

Today we’re going to learn how to pray.  Remember that it’s as simple as talking to someone you love.  (Write out the word TALK as an acrostic on a whiteboard/chalkboard.)

T:  TAKE the TIME: (Have children point to a pretend watch on their wrist.)
Find time in your day to talk to God.  Pray at the same time each day.  Make it a habit, like brushing your teeth.  Ya’ll brush your teeth, right?

A:  AHHHHHH…. Quiet: (Have children take a deep breath with you.)
Find a quiet place in your home.  Turn the TV off, your music off, and find a way to escape from your little brother.  Sit under a table, go in your closet if it’s big enough, make a fort, whatever!

L:  LEARN from God’s Word. (Have children place hands palm side up as if holding a Bible.)
Read one verse a day.  If you’re up for the challenge, read one chapter a day.  Try to understand what God is saying to you.  Ask a grown-up who knows Jesus for help if you need it.

K:  KEEP a Prayer Plan. (Have children pretend like they are writing.)
Write down how to pray.  Pray that way.  Write down praises, prayer requests, and verses that mean a lot to you.  Keep it simple or else you won’t keep doing it.

(Repeat each component at least once, if not twice to ensure retention.)

Do any of you like to talk with your hands? (Mimic people who talk with their hands:  chefs, airline stewardesses, tour guides, photographers, pastors, etc.)

Today our hands are going to help us learn how to pray.  As long as your hands go home with you today (please tell me they will!) you should remember our lesson.  You’ve got five fingers and we’ve got five parts of prayer.  You ready?

1.  PRAISE: Praise is saying what you love about someone.  It’s saying, “God, I love that you are good.  I love how you made the ocean.  I love that you sent Jesus for our sins.”  (As you list each example, number them with your fingers and invite the children to do the same.)

2. CONFESS: Confession is a big word for spit up.  It means to get the junk out of your life.  It’s when you ask for forgiveness of your sins.  It’s saying, “I’m sorry that I lied.  Forgive me for getting in a fight with my brother.  I’m sorry for not loving you like I should.”  (As you list each, use your hands to mimic throwing up.)

3. READ: Reading God’s word helps us see ourselves as in a mirror.  It helps us understand who God is and who we are.  It helps us to pray because we know who we’re praying to.  (Mimic turning pages or holding up a mirror.)

4. ASK: God says in Matthew 21:22 that, “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”  Pray for others.  Pray for yourself.  Ask for people to be saved, for God to provide, for wisdom to understand, for help in temptation, for people to be healed.  (Invite children to fold their hands as in prayer.)

5. THANKS: God has done so much for us.  What can you be thankful for today?  (Invite children to list items.  Lead the children in a lively worship song of praise/thanksgiving such as “He has made me glad.”  Have them clap their hands in thanks.)

(Review each of the parts of the Prayer Plan with the hand motions to cue the students’ memory.  Review a second time with only the bolded words.  Have students demonstrate the hand motions for each.  Close the lesson in prayer.  Follow the prayer plan, keeping it brief to hold students’ attention.)

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Use this Sunday school lesson with kids of all ages from the popular book Kids’ Travel Guide to the Lord’s Prayer. Find more great Sunday school lessons to help kids grow in their faith.

Travel Itinerary

God desires to have a relationship with each of us, and an important part of any relationship is communication. God has established prayer as a means for us to communicate with him. Through prayer, we can praise God, ask for forgiveness, thank God for all he’s done, and let our requests be made known to him. Prayer allows us to open our hearts to God and let him know our innermost thoughts and desires.

Children are eager to communicate with anyone who will listen to them, but they often feel adults don’t care about their thoughts, concerns, and opinions. Use this lesson to teach your children that God wants us to talk to him and gives us many examples of prayer in the Bible. Celebrate with them the joy of communicating with God.

Pathway Point:

God wants us to talk to him.

In-Focus Verse:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Philippians 4:6).

Departure Prayer (up to 5 minutes)

How can we teach children about prayer without actually taking time to pray? If you don’t have enough time to pray, you don’t have enough time to teach! Fight the temptation to dive into the lesson without asking God for his wisdom. Spending a few minutes in prayer can make the difference between wasting your time and watching it produce much fruit. God will give you the wisdom to teach as you ask him for it (James 1:5).

Before you pray remind the children that they can talk to God as they would their best friends. God wants to hear what each person has to say. Invite each child to thank God for one good thing that happened in the past week.

Then pray: Dear Lord, thank you for loving us and hearing us when we pray. Help us to learn to talk to you every day, in every situation. Thank you for answering our prayers and helping us to please you. We love you and praise you for all you’ve done. Amen.

1st Stop Discovery (15 minutes)

An Invitation

This activity emphasizes God’s love for each child and his desire to communicate with us.

Items to Pack

• construction paper,
• crayons or markers,
• bright and colorful stickers

Borrow a book of sample invitations from a stationery shop. Let children look at all the fancy and expensive invitations for inspiration as they make their own.

Ask:

• When have you been invited to something fun, like a birthday party, wedding, or another special event?
• How did you know you were invited?
• What do invitations look like? What do they say?

Say: God has invited each of us to spend time with him and talk to him. God wants us to talk to him! When we talk to God, it’s called prayer. Let’s make invitations from God, inviting us to talk to him.

The Activity

Set out the construction paper, markers or crayons, and colorful stickers. Then have each child make an invitation to give to a different child in the class. Let children draw names so they’ll each know who to make an invitation for. The invitation should be from God, inviting the child to come and talk to God. Let kids fill in the remaining information as follows:

Time: any time!
Place: any place!
Date: any day!

Remind kids that this is God’s personal invitation for a special visit, so they should work to make the invitation as nice as possible. Then when the invitations are finished, have children deliver them to each other.

Activity Debrief

Ask:

• When you have something important or exciting that you want to share with a friend, how do you usually communicate with him or her?
• Do you need to send a special invitation to talk with your friend?
• How would you feel if every time you had something to talk about with your friend you had to make an appointment or send an invitation?

Say: We don’t need an invitation to talk to God. God wants us to talk to him. When we talk to God, it’s called prayer, and today we’re going to be learning more about what prayer is.

Story Excursion (15 minutes)

ABCs of Prayer

Children will consider reasons people prayed in the Bible, and reasons why we pray today.

Items to Pack

• Bibles,
• marker,
• a large sheet of newsprint or a white board

If you have adult or teen helpers in your class, ask them to join different groups and help the groups locate and read their assigned verses. You may want to write these verses on slips of paper ahead of time to make it easier for children to refer to them.

Preparation

Boldly print the letters of the alphabet down the left margin of the newsprint or whiteboard, and place it where children can easily see it.

Open your Bible to Luke 11 and read verse 1 aloud.

Ask:

• Why did the disciples need to be taught how to pray?
• Do we need to be taught how to pray? Why or why not?
• What do you think prayer is?

Say: The Bible gives us hundreds of examples of prayers. One prayer from the Bible that many people know is called the Lord’s Prayer. We’re going to spend the next weeks learning about this prayer. But first, let’s look in the Bible to find a few other prayers. We can see why people prayed and what they said in their prayers. This will help us understand more about what prayer is.

The Activity

Have children form five groups. Be sure that each group has a Bible.

Assign each group one of the following Scriptures, and have the children read the verses together and determine why the person was praying.

1. Genesis 24:12-14
2. 1 Kings 3:7-9
3. Acts 9:36-42
4. Daniel 9:4-5
5. Mark 6:41

Allow several minutes for children to read and discuss. Then ask each group to report why the person in their passage was praying. As they report, write their answer beside the letter of the alphabet that corresponds with the first letter of their answer. For example, Group 1 might answer “guidance,” so you would write this beside the letter G on your alphabet list. Group 2 might say “wisdom,” so this would go beside the letter W. Groups may have more than one answer, they may use a short phrase for their answer, and there may be several answers for some letters of the alphabet.

After each group has reported, say: Let’s fill in all the blank letters now. Think of other reasons you or other people you know pray that begin with the letters we still have available.

Have the class work together to complete the alphabet. Your list might include Ask God for something, Blessing, Confession, Direction, and so on. Here’s help on the difficult letters. Q: Quiet heart or Quest for help. X: eXcitement for what God has done or eXpress praise. Y: Yearning to know God or saying Yes to God. Z: Zeal for God or Zillions of things to thank God for. Bring along a dictionary or thesaurus for extra ideas.

Activity Debrief

The say: Wow! This is a wonderful list. It shows us there are so many reasons to pray to God. Our list also helps us see that prayer is more than just saying thanks to God before we eat, or more than asking God for a new bike. It’s a special way of communicating everything about our lives with God. And best of all, God wants us to talk to him! Let’s read about one more reason we can pray.

Read Philippians 4:6 aloud, and ask what this verse teaches us about prayer. Then say: God doesn’t want us to worry about things. God wants us to tell him what’s going on in our lives and let him take care of it. Let’s say this verse aloud together.

Say the verse aloud several times, letting children repeat each phrase. Then say: The Bible makes it clear that God wants us to talk to him. It’s great to know that God cares about us enough to listen to us all the time!

Adventures in Growing (15 minutes)

Preferred Communication

Children will consider ways we communicate with people and ways we can communicate with God.

Items to Pack

• paper,
• pencils

The Activity

Have children stay in their groups from the previous activity, and assign each group one of the following forms of communication: sign language, e-mail, letters, telephone, talking face to face. Then ask group members to tell each other jokes within their groups, while only using their assigned method of communication. Give the following directions to the various groups:

• Sign language group: Only use hands and gestures to communicate. No sounds or lip movement allowed.
• E-mail group: Sit back-to-back and write messages on paper, then hand them to others in the group without making eye contact or speaking aloud.
• Letters group: Write messages on paper, and silently deliver to others in the group.
• Telephone group: Sit back-to-back and talk without making eye contact.
• Talking face to face group: Converse normally.

After children have communicated jokes for several minutes in this manner, have them sit in their groups and communicate normally as they continue this activity.

Activity Debrief

The say: Think of at least two reasons your group’s kind of communication is good and at least two reasons this kind of communication is not good. For example, you can use sign language in places where you’re supposed to be quiet, like a library, but you can’t use sign language to talk on the phone.

Allow a few minutes for discussion, then have each group report its answers.

Ask:

• If you had to choose only one of these ways of communicating, which one would it be and why?
• Which of these ways can we use to communicate with God?
• Which form of communication is easiest for you to use to talk with your friends? your parents? God?
• Which of these ways of communicating will you use to share what’s on your mind with God this week?

Then say: God doesn’t care how we communicate with him. We can write, speak, or even think what we want to communicate to God, and God hears us and understands us. And God never gives us a busy signal or says the words in our letters aren’t spelled right or tells us to come back later when he’s not busy. God hears our prayers any time, any place, and any day. God wants us to talk to him so he’s made it easy for us to pray!

God’s Listening Ears (5 minutes)

Children will use a rhyme with hand motions to remind them that they can always talk to God.

Say: In Isaiah 30:19b, the Bible says, “How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.” God wants us to talk to him. He’s ready to hear our every word. Let’s learn a poem to remind us that we can pray any time and God will hear us.

Lead the kids in the following rhyme, doing the hand motions and letting children repeat the words and motions.

God is always ready to hear (cup hands to your ears)

Words we speak that are sincere. (Put hand over your heart.)

He will listen to every prayer (fold hands as in prayer)

Any time and anywhere. (Spread arms to indicate large area.)

God pays attention to every word (cup hand to ear again);

Nothing we say will go unheard. (Shake head from side to side.)

So talk to God both night and day (cup hands around mouth)

And close beside him you will stay. (Wrap arms around self as if in a hug.)

Souvenirs (10 minutes)

Prayer Journal

Children will record prayers and keep track of God’s answers over time.

Items to Pack:

• blank paper,
• pencils or pens

Say: We’re going to be learning about prayer for several weeks. Let’s start keeping track of what we’re praying about, and see what God does in our lives and in the lives of others through these prayers.

Give each child a “Prayer Journal” handout, and make pens or pencils available. Then ask children to write or draw at least two things they want to pray about this week and include the date. Have older children help younger ones who cannot write. Explain that each week kids can add to this list, and they can also note how God answers their prayers over the coming weeks.

Home Again Prayer (10 minutes)

Tower of Prayer

This activity becomes a visual prayer

Items to Pack

• poster board or heavy paper,
• pair of scissors or a paper cutter,
• tape,
• markers or crayons

Preparation

Cut poster board or heavy paper into 4×4 squares. You will need two squares per child.

Give each child two squares. Have the children write or draw a picture of something they would like to talk to God about. It can be something they’re thankful for, something they’re concerned about, or a visual expression of praise.

As children complete their artwork, invite them to take turns taping their squares to the wall, starting down low near the floor, placing one on top of the other to create a tower of prayer. As you watch the tower grow, notice all the different things the children want to pray about to God. Explain to kids that this is a visual reminder of all the reasons we have to pray.

Say: Our tower is tall, but it’s not how high it is that matters. Our prayers reach God no matter how big or small they are.

When the tower is complete, have children form pairs. Have children share with their partners about the blocks they created for the tower. Then ask children to sit down together and pray for each other. After a couple of minutes, close the time with this prayer:

Dear God, thank you so much for loving us and for listening to our prayers. We’re glad that you want us to talk to you. Help us to talk to you every day this week, no matter what’s going on in our lives. Amen.

Scenic Route

Have kids write their names on the back of their Prayer Journal pages, writing the letters down the left margin. Then have them refer to the ABC list created earlier and write reasons to pray that match the letters of their names. This adds a personal dimension to praying!

Want more lessons like this? Check out all our Travel Guide books today!

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