Pray as you walk to class. | Source Why Prayer is Important
Today, more than ever, our schools need our prayers. Whether you pray by yourself or gather a group to pray with you, remember that prayer is doing something! God covets the prayers of his people and our educators, administrators and students need the prayers of the Christians in their schools. Most importantly, by praying, you can remind others to pray as well for continuing needs, such as:
- Students who have difficult home lives.
- Pressure to pass standardized tests.
- Cuts in funding.
- Public perception that schools aren’t doing enough.
- Low salaries for teachers.
- Kids who aren’t prepared for school.
- School bullying.
- Dealing with Social Media.
Organized Prayer Walking: Yet, it can sometimes be difficult to know how to pray for our schools. Recently, our Acteens group of teenage girls went to prayer walk their own Junior High and High School. In previous prayer walks, we had discussed what to pray for, but this time, we decided we wanted to give the girls a prayer walking guide to help them pray for their schools. Having a guide was a good way to focus the group.
Informal Prayer Walking: Prayer walks can be done by parents and educators as well as teens. You don’t have to walk around the school as we did. Many students participate in Gather at the Pole to pray for their school each year. Parents can also make it a habit to pray as they drive their children to and from school each day, and students can pray as they walk between classes, wait in class, or walk to lunch.
Prayer Stations: As we’ve added girls from different schools, we realized we wanted to cover needs from more than one campus, so instead of walking around the campus, we’ve set up prayer stations for different campuses in a room at our church. Using candles, Christian art and fabric dividers, we’ve created a prayer room atmosphere that the students really enjoyed. We had them do a variety of activities, such as:
- Praying aloud as a group.
- Praying silently over needs that were written on cards.
- Praying by writing post-it notes and putting them on a poster with pictures from that school.
- Writing personal prayers for problems at their school and putting them in a box.
- Using the newspaper headlines to pray.
- Praying aloud as a group using Scriptures.
Prayer Walk PollHave you gone on a prayer walk before? 1st Grade Class. Pray for teachers to be able to manage the learning needs of all kids. | Source
Table of contents
Step by Step Instructions
- Get Permission: If you are walking on school grounds, it is important to get permission if possible. Since we had a large group and we were walking on a Sunday evening, we contacted the Principals at both schools to ask their permission. It might also be possible to walk outside of school property if you have concerns.
- Give Clear Instructions: We started off the walk by gathering together, passing out the prayer walk guides and discussing how to pray. Because the girls were walking over their own schools, we urged them to think about people they knew who needed prayer and to use the guides to prompt them about what to pray.
- Walking and Silent Prayer: After praying as a group, we walked single file around each school in silent prayer. Periodically, the girls would refer to their sheets in order to get more ideas for what to pray. It took us about 15-20 minutes to walk around each school. In the past, when we have walked the two school separately, we would sometimes go around twice.
- Gather Together for Group Prayer: At the end of our walk, we gathered everyone together and had a chance for praying out loud. I was very touched at how deeply some of the girls prayed for teachers, friends, and their school.
- Reminder to Continue to Pray: One of the most important goals for our walk was to impress on the girls that they can pray every day as they walk across the school. Giving them the prayer guide is a reminder of things that they can pray for that they may not have thought about before.
Example from One Youth Group
This prayer guide can help you to think about what you can pray for as you do a prayer walk at school.
Pray for Students, Teachers, Administrators and Staff you know: As you walk, think about the different people you know at school. Ask God to bring people to your mind who need your prayers. You can pray that they can:
- deal with the stress they feel without hurting other people
- make good decisions
- be forgiving
- be kind and loving
- be thankful
- have energy
- do a good job
- have an understanding of other people and be forgetful when people do them wrong
- have love, have joy, have peace, have patience, have goodness, have faithfulness, have self-control
- be thoughtful of other people
- do the right thing
- get help if they are hurting
- will do a good job
- will come to know Jesus (if they are not believers)
- will show Jesus in what they do and say (if they are believers)
Pray for People You May Not Know: Along with praying for people you know, you can pray for people in the school that you don’t know but God does know. Here are some of the people in schools that you can pray for:
- Teachers
- Principal, Vice Principal and Counselors
- Secretaries, nurses, receptionist, and other office workers
- Staff in cafeteria
- Maintenance workers
- Crossing Guards
- Bus Drivers
- School Board who makes decisions for the school
- P.T.A. parents
- Students who are leaders on campus
- Christian students, you know
- Students who have a hard time doing schoolwork
- Students you know who have a hard time at home, or in family
- Students who are disruptive in class
- Students who are bullies to others or just mean
- Students who get bullied, gossiped about or ignored
- Students who feel like no one cares
Scripture to Use
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Romans 12, |
Matthew 5: 3-16 |
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1 Corinthians 13 |
1 Peter 2: 12-17, 3: 8-17 |
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Galations 5: 22-26, 6: 1-9 |
1 Peter 5: 1-11 |
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Ephesians 1: 16-23, 3: 14-21 |
2 Peter 1: 1-8 |
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Colossians 3: 1-17 |
1 John 3 |
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1 Thes. 5: 12-24 |
James 5: 7-20 |
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2 Tim. 2: 15-16, 22-26 |
Hebrews 12: 1-14 |
Pray for safety in sports and other activities. | Source
Another effective way to prayer walk is to pray from the Bible, or take a list of Scripture verses and use these in your prayers. You can just read these as prayers, or else personalize them to make them into a prayer for your school or for a person at your school.
What Scriptures can you use? The best Bible verses for a prayer walk are ones which are prayers or verses about encouragement. The Psalms and the letters of Paul (Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, Ephesians, 1 and 2nd Thessalonians, and 1 and 2 Timothy are my favorites).
How do you Pray From the Bible?
- If you are leading a group in praying, you might want to pick some Bible verses ahead of time for people to pray. You can use my list or find some of your own.
- If you are praying on your own, you may just want to just read through one of the letters from Paul like Ephesians and then stop and pray when you find a verse which is a good prayer for your school.
- You can pray out loud or silently. If you are praying with a group, you can have each person look for Scriptures to pray in a different book of the Bible.
Example of Praying from the Bible:
Praying from 1 Thessalonians 5: 11-13: Dear Lord, I ask that you help the Christian students at the school to encourage each other and build each other up. I ask that you help them to appreciate their teachers who diligently labor among them. I ask that John and Christine will tell their teachers today that they appreciate them and esteem them very highly in love because of their work. I ask that the students in Mrs. Johnson’s class live at peace with one another.
Praying from 2 Timothy 2: 15-16: Dear God Almighty, I pray that the Christian students from our Church at the High School will be diligent to present themselves approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. I also pray especially that they will avoid worldly and empty chatter like gossip and mean talk about other people.
Your Ideas?
Do you have ideas for how to pray for schools? Please share them in the comments so that we can be encouraged with more ideas of how to pray effectively. I’d also love other ideas of good Bible Verses to use in praying for students and teachers in schools.
This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
wehavekids.com
by Gela ()
Please pray for me as I have been struggling in nursing school. I desire to care for my brothers and sisters in Christ. This is where my heart is. I have not been doing well on tests, but I know that I can do it with God’s help.
I know He has amazing plans for all of us. Please pray that I will stay motivated and that I will be able to pull up my average. I have one more unit test and I am depending on this to help me obtain a passing grade.
I know that I am not the only one struggling with school out there, so I ask that you please keep all students, especially those who are in the same situation as I am, in your thoughts and prayers as well.
Thank you so much. May God bless each and every one of us.
Return to Prayers for Children
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jepvc4 said:
So far, studying for the entrance exam, the MCAT, has been hard to do with my pressed schedule this semester. The test comes up in April on the 17th, and I need to do well to offset a not as well GPA. Being a doctor is something I really feel called by God to do, and I’m starting to struggle with my faith that I will be able to get in to a medical school that I prefer. So, please pray! Anyone who also has any advice or experience they can share, I would be grateful.
James
Click to expand…
Hi James,I didn’t study to be a doctor… I became a teacher. The number of tests and other requirements we had to pass was astounding…. I doubted I would pass them all because of life circumstances that made it difficult for me to study for them all…. I committed the test to prayer. If God really wanted me to become a teacher, he’d see that I was doing my level best. I wasn’t going to slack off… but I’d heard that one of the tests… people failed time and time again.
I have always believed that if there is something God really wants me to do… he will intervene. I’ve also believed that lack of money has never stopped me from doing something that God wants me to. I saw both of those things worked out during my teacher preparation program. Not only did I get a brand new, fully loaded FREE computer (long story)…. but I passed every single one of those test. Some I passed with flying colors…. the biggey.. I passed with 316. You need 311 to pass.
When it’s all over and done with… those tests don’t reflect on who you are. That you would come here and ask people to pray for you shows how important this is. I pray that you do well on your test. I pray that God would be with you through medical school and through the grueling first few years. Thank you for wanting to bring healing into the world.
LC
www.christianforums.com
Praying before and during a test can help overcome test anxiety. Test anxiety affects everyone depending on how much pressure is felt to make a good grade. Test anxiety can range from mild to severe. When test anxiety is severe, studies show that students receive scores lower than those of other students who do not feel nervous, physically ill or distracted during a test. Test anxiety can occur in school, in college or in the work place.
Here is a prayer for you that can be prayed before the test and also has short, one-sentence prayers that can be prayed during the test to help you feel calmer and more focused.
Test Anxiety Prayer Using Scriptures
Repeat the following Scripture to begin the prayer:
Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Psalm 139:23 NIV
Lord, I thank you that you know my heart and my thoughts. I thank you that you are the Good Teacher and that You do not need to test me in high pressure situations where I’m nervous about whether I’ll be able to perform well. Instead you know my true talents, my character and my capabilities. You know the hours of study I have put in and you know how well I understand the material for the upcoming test. It comforts me that you know my anxious thoughts and take them into account. I open myself up to you and your complete knowledge of everything I think and worry about.
I pray that during the test if I begin to feel anxious that you will remind me to pray, “Lord, you know my thoughts and my true capabilities.”
As I pray this with confidence, I will do it based on the truth you tell me in the Bible about how well you know my thoughts:
“You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.” Psalm 139:2
I pray that if during the test of my mind seems to go blank that you will remind me to pray: “Lord, remind me of everything I need to remember.”
As I pray this with confidence, I will do it based on the truth you tell me in the Bible about your ability to remind me of all things:
“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” John 14:26 NIV
I pray that if during the test I begin experiencing physical symptoms of nerves like a headache or feeling sweaty and anxious that you will remind me to pray: “Lord, heal all of my diseases.”
As I pray this with confidence, I will do it based on the truth you tell me in the Bible about your ability to heal my body.
“God forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases.” Psalm 103:3 NIV
I pray that if during the test I become so wrapped up in distractions either inside my head or outside as I watch the clock or compare myself to other students who seem to be breezing through the test that you will remind me to pray, “Lord, keep my mind on track.”
As I pray this with confidence, I will do it based on the truth you tell me in the Bible about your ability to help us keep our minds focused.
“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.” Isaiah 26:3
I pray that if I get a test result back where test anxiety caused me to make a grade that doesn’t reflect my mastery and knowledge of the subject, I pray that you will give me the courage and wisdom as to whether to speak with my teacher, professor or supervisor about the problems I experienced. Please guide me whether to ask for advice on earning extra credit or getting help on study habits or test taking skills and strategies. I will pray, “Lord, show me how to recover and be restored.”
As I pray this with confidence, I do it based on the truth that you are a God of second chances, based on what the Bible says about your ability to redeem and restore.
“And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.” I Peter 5:10
Most of all, I thank you that no matter what my hopes, dreams, challenges and fears are, the closer I become to you and the more I learn to depend on you, the more confident I will become that you are there with me in all stressful situations of my life.
Amen.
Research on Test Anxiety behind this Prayer
This prayer covers what researchers term the 3 dimensions of test anxiety:
Worrying about failing the test
The actual physical sensations you might feel during the test that are symptoms of your anxiety (examples heart beating faster, palms sweating)
Distractions during the test that are often nervous habits that cause you to lose focus
Useful treatments include therapy that helps you overcome negative thought patterns that are interfering with your ability to perform well on tests. Also, there are classes and groups to help you become more confident in your study skills and testing skills.
Experts are currently looking into the problem of test anxiety and its causes. For instance, studies on the topic of math anxiety show nearly half of all Americans suffer from a feeling that they are not “good” at math. According to Jo Boaler, professor of mathematics education at Stanford University, this probably originates from the timed test drills in elementary school where you must quickly write down the answers to addition or multiplication problems. Educators are now discovering that this causes students to simply memorize facts without really understanding the concept of the mathematical principles. Understanding and appreciating these principles is crucial later on in higher math which is conceptual in nature. Making matters worse, brain researchers have also found that under pressure, memorized facts become blocked by the testing worries, causing the students to lose confidence in their abilities.
Other Helpful Links
Final exam prayer with scriptures
College stress prayer strategy
Finding your personal meditation and prayer place at college
Overcoming procrastination prayer
Anxiety calming prayer
Fear of public speaking prayer
Copyright Karen Barber 2014. All rights reserved.
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