June 10, 2025 • 24 mins
In this episode of She Teaches Sunday, we’re talking about prayer in the classroom—not the kind that happens once a quarter, but the kind that becomes a regular part of your Sunday School class.
A lot of teachers already include prayer time, but many don’t—and not because they don’t believe in it. Usually, it’s because it feels intimidating, time-consuming, or chaotic. I’ve been there.
Today we’re diving into:
· Why some of us avoid prayer in class
· Why prayer is worth the time and effort
· Real-world solutions to the awkward, silly, and chaotic moments that come with classroom prayer
We’ll also talk about what prayer teaches our students—especially those who may not be learning it anywhere else—and how even simple, consistent prayer can shape a child’s faith.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to She Teaches Sunday.
My name is Christina.
The goal of this podcast is justsome real talk about teaching
kids in a Sunday school setting.
We'll talk about what works,what flops, and basically
surviving the chaos.
I have about 15 years ofexperience teaching Sunday
school, but I'm still learningevery single time I get in the
classroom.
This isn't going to be expertadvice.
(00:20):
These are just lessons taughtthrough experience that I'd love
to share with you.
Welcome to She Teaches Sunday.
I want to talk today aboutprayer in the Sunday school
class.
Now, little disclaimer.
I know a lot of you are alreadydoing this, but not everybody
does.
And those who don't do it aren'tskipping it because they think
it's a waste of time, pointless,or anything like that.
(00:42):
So for those of you who arealready praying in their Sunday
school class, awesome.
For those who aren't, I dounderstand.
There are a lot of reasons toavoid prayer in class.
Now, we all know.
That it's not something that weshould avoid.
But we have some arguablylegitimate reasons for skipping
prayer time in the classroom.
(01:03):
To be honest, one of them wouldbe it gets out of hand fast.
The kids aren't taking itseriously and they decide prayer
request is the time where theystart telling you about all the
negative things that happen intheir week.
Not because they want you topray about it, but because they
want to talk about it.
Another thing that I've had isthe copy-paste prayers.
One kid's like, well, I'd liketo pray about my dog.
(01:25):
And then all of a sudden everyother kid wants to pray about a
dog too.
Whether or not they actuallyhave one, they'll find somebody
who has a dog and then want youto pray about that dog.
They don't really think aboutwhat they actually want prayed.
They just want to copy theperson who went ahead of them.
If you have older kids, youmight deal with unspoken prayer
(01:46):
requests.
Which are fine.
But you have one kid that goes,well, unspoken.
And then the next kid...
Unspoken.
Unspoken.
Now you're normally going to getthat with the older age groups
and that might be frustrating aswell because you want to
actually pray for their needsand they're just saying
unspoken.
And disclaimer, it's not a badthing, but I do understand as a
(02:06):
teacher that we want to kind ofreally show them what prayer is
about and not have to pray forthese vague, we'll take care of
so-and-so and so-and-so andso-and-so because of...
they have some sort of problemthey need help.
Other problems would be theclass clown decides it's time to
tell a joke during this time.
Another reason is timerestraints.
We may only have 25 minutes, 45minutes to teach a Sunday school
(02:30):
class and while, yes, prayerdoesn't take that long, it takes
so long to get through a Sundayschool class with so many things
to do that it definitely startsto feel like stuff needs to be
cut and prayer is an easy thingto cut.
But the biggest reason that alot us don't pray in the Sunday
school class is because we'rescared to.
We're scared to pray in front ofothers even if it's just
(02:51):
children.
And I get that.
If you're the same way, it doesnot mean that you're a bad
teacher.
I definitely believe that weshould have prayer in the Sunday
school room, but if you haven'tbeen doing it up until now,
don't blame yourself.
Moving forward, definitely doit, but it's okay.
I get it.
I am the exact same person.
I am the one who has been scaredof teaching in the Sunday school
(03:13):
class for years.
Now, I do want to go over alittle bit of why prayer matters
in the Sunday school classroom.
So I think all of us areprobably pretty much on the same
page about how important prayeris, how much it could actually
be useful or needed in theSunday school room.
So I probably don't even need tolist any of those things, but I
think I'm going to anyway justbecause I want.
(03:35):
It's good to have a reminder ofwhy this thing called prayer is
so important for us and soimportant for us to do in front
of kids.
One of the major ones is wemight be the only ones showing
them this.
Not every kid goes to church ona regular basis or has parents
that go to church on a regularbasis.
(03:56):
And even some of the parents whogo to church regularly may not
be praying at home or maybe theyhave very private prayer times
where the kids just aren'thearing prayers.
Kids need to be hearing prayers.
They need to be seeing otherpeople praying.
We are an example to them and itis very, very important.
So it's something they need tobe seeing.
And prayer is actually the mosttransferable part of what we
(04:19):
teach.
So we're teaching them all kindsof different lessons and
characteristics that they needto be learning, things about
God, random facts about Biblestories.
We're teaching them a lot in ourSunday school class.
But prayer is the easiest thingfor them to take away from that
lesson.
It's the easiest thing for themto remember how to use.
(04:40):
We can teach them a lesson aboutforgiveness and they may get it
but have a little bit of troubleapplying it once they get out of
the classroom because you knowsomebody makes them angry.
It's very hard to remember ohmaybe I should forgive them in
that moment.
And it's something we'reteaching them but I get that
it's something that's hard toapply.
Prayer on the other hand issomething that's very very easy
(05:03):
easy to apply they may rememberoh I have a need let me ask God
to help with it it's somethingthat's very very easy to do I
think maybe it's because we'reselfish by nature but it's easy
to remember oh I want this or Ineed this let me talk to
somebody who can help me withthat and while I know it does
(05:24):
seem like a selfish way oflooking at it if we can get
these kids praying it's reallygoing to make a world of
difference.
And it's something that we caneasily, easily teach them to do.
We just have to be modeling itfor them.
It's an example for them.
We are the example.
And we're not showing them justhow to ask God for stuff,
(05:45):
although it may seem like itstarts that way.
We're actually starting to showthem how to talk to God and how
to listen to God.
Now they learn to pray bywatching us pray.
So remember that.
They're learning by example andwe're actually one of their
examples.
Hopefully we're not their onlyexample, but keep in mind that
(06:06):
it is a possibility that wemight be that only example.
And as we keep doing it fromweek to week, it actually does
become less scary and morenatural.
So I did go over before, there'sa lot of challenges with this.
You wouldn't think so, but theredefinitely is.
So some of the ones I mentionedwould be like time crunch.
(06:27):
I just don't have time to prayin the classroom.
I only have, say, 25 minutes andI've got to go through the
lesson.
I've got to go through thecraft.
I've got to go through maybe agame.
I've got to do something to kindof make it stick to them.
I need to do some sort ofwelcome.
I need to delay the first 10minutes of class because all of
my students come in late and Idon't want to start without all
(06:49):
the kids there.
There's a lot...
of reasons and time crunch isprobably one of the biggest.
Instead of eliminating prayer ingeneral, just kind of limit the
prayer request time.
And don't be afraid to say,we're going to do quick one
sentence requests and kind ofpare it down and keep them from
going on and on and on and onand on.
(07:10):
If you're in a class and thereare so many prayer requests that
you can't remember them all whenyou go to pray, and this is if
you have the time to do it, Iwrite them down.
I can't remember.
The kids have so many prayerrequests that if you have time
to do them, definitely if youcan't remember, write them down.
It doesn't take away from yourcredibility of prayer to have to
(07:31):
be reading the prayer requestsfrom a piece of paper.
It really doesn't.
If you're in a time crunch andyou're kind of noticing after a
couple of requests that thereare similar requests, maybe you
could group some of thoserequests.
You could say, well, it soundslike a lot of us are praying for
family.
Let's just go ahead and pray foreverybody's family.
Now, I will say that...
(07:51):
That's only if you're in a timecrunch.
If you actually have time tolisten to each individual prayer
request even if you tell them tokeep it to one it is a lot more
meaningful to them to hear youpray for their specific need.
So whenever possible I woulddefinitely recommend trying to
do them individually.
But then again I get it.
If there's a time crunch just goahead and group them.
(08:15):
Now for those kids who aregiving silly or repetitive
requests, that's a little bitmore challenging and it doesn't
help if the silly request comesin early.
That means everybody else iscopying them and so the first
one says, oh, I want to pray formy little sister's toy.
(08:36):
Then all of the sudden the nextperson wants to play for their
little brother's toy and so onand so forth.
So if you have a lot of that, Iwould start with teaching what a
prayer request is and let themknow, hey, we're going to do
prayer requests now.
And prayer requests is forsomething that we believe God
will help with.
This isn't something that'sgoing to be silly.
(08:56):
This is something real,something we need God to help us
with.
And if they still do somethingkind of on the silly side, maybe
they're not trying to be silly,and this is especially with the
younger kids.
They're like, oh, I need you topray for my little pet turtle's
toe.
He stubbed his toe.
As long as it isn't aninappropriate kind of prayer
(09:16):
request, just pray for it.
Maybe the turtle really did hurthis toe.
And even if the turtle didn'thurt his toe, turtle doesn't
care, turtle doesn't know,turtle doesn't exist, it's going
to mean a lot to that kid thatyou paid attention to their
prayer request, took itseriously, and prayed for their
turtle's toe.
Now for kids who won'tparticipate at all or those who
(09:37):
share off-topic stuff, If that'sthe kind of group you have in
general maybe start off by usingprompts to kind of keep them on
track like is anyone's familygoing through a hard time or who
knows anyone who's been sick andkind of keep them on that same
track.
Maybe in some cases, instead ofasking for prayer requests, we
(10:01):
could say something like, we'reeach going to think of one thing
that we're thankful for, andlet's pray a prayer of thanks
today instead of makingrequests.
And that's something I might doanyway.
Not every single week,definitely pray for requests,
but every now and then.
just give a prayer ofthankfulness.
It's something that biblicallywe need to be doing anyway, so
let's teach them to be thankful.
(10:22):
And on the plus side, it doeskind of keep them on track and
not getting all distracted andbeing silly.
Now another big problem that wehave sometimes, and I hadn't
mentioned this yet, is dependingon the group of kids, sometimes
when you go to pray, kids arebored with prayer.
They're bored of prayer time.
They don't want to do it.
(10:43):
Sometimes prayer feels like thetime when the class just
collectively just zones out.
Now in my case, first and secondgraders, they're kind of always
distracted anyway, not zonedout, but not paying attention.
So for me, prayer time's aboutthe same as any other time.
They don't really want to payattention.
Now kids are generally...
not quiet.
They're noisy all of the timebut I find that when you ask
(11:07):
them to pray out loud, notsingling them out but kind of
praying out loud as a group,suddenly they are all about the
meekness.
They're just as quiet as can be.
They don't want to talk.
All of a sudden they get thatsame self-consciousness that
some of us adults have to dealwith with praying.
They don't want to do it.
They seem to be scared to.
(11:27):
So if they're scared I'm notgoing to make them do it.
But I'd rather them not all justbow their heads and try to be
quiet while they listen to mepray.
Prayer isn't about one persontalking to God and everybody
else listening to that oneperson talk to God.
Prayer is about talking to God.
Not just me.
For all the kids too.
(11:47):
Now I can tell them this and I'mdefinitely going to encourage
them to pray to God themselveswhile I'm praying and they're
probably just going to listen tome anyway.
But I do want to encourage themthat it's their time to talk to
God as well.
They don't have to just listento me.
We can all be praying out loudat the same time.
It is all good.
And maybe it would even helphaving an example of someone
(12:08):
doing just that.
Get your co-teacher if you haveone involved.
Get them to pray out loud whileyou're praying out loud too.
Get some noise up before thethrone of God.
Show them that it is notsomething to be ashamed of and
it is not something to be scaredof.
We're kind of teaching ourselvesthis right along with teaching
them.
We're also teaching them thatthis isn't a show.
(12:30):
It's not just one person givingtheir performance of a prayer.
Oh, Lord, thou art the greatestGod in all the earth, and we
beseech thee to answer ourprayers.
It's not that.
It is all of us sincerelytalking to the one who can
actually hear us and make adifference in our lives.
(12:53):
And we want to show them how topray.
Prayer isn't boring.
But we have to show them that.
If we get them all to quietlybow their heads, fold their
hands, and listen to us drone onin Old English, yeah, it's going
to be boring to them.
And that's not what we want toshow them.
A kind of cool idea though tomaking it a little more exciting
(13:16):
when going into prayer is tokind of change up how you do it
every week, every quarter,something to that effect.
An example is when I wasteaching a kindergarten class
years ago, I think it wasactually the curriculum book
recommended getting an umbrellaone lesson and sitting on the
floor having the children gatheraround you and you explain that
the umbrella is...
I don't know I think it wassomething like a God's covering
(13:38):
or something and it wasexplained in a way that was
appropriate for that age groupand we would pray under the
umbrella all kind of huddled upand hugging and they loved it
and it was supposed to have beenjust a one week thing and
instead I did it for I think theentire quarter maybe longer
because they loved that changethey loved huddling under the
(13:59):
umbrella it was something newand different and I recently
just tried something differentwith my first and second graders
as well we were teaching aboutPaul and his journeys and so we
were having fun with a ship andso I had cleared most of the
chairs and tables so the floorwas kind of open and we were
doing the adventure and we werepretending to be in the boat
wave splashing all that funstuff and at the very end after
(14:22):
we had had a shipwreck swam toMalta I got them all to sit on
the floor and in the floorsurrounded by children is when
we did the prayer request sothat was different normally we'd
be sitting at a table doing aprayer request after the lesson
this was totally different andit was wonderful because it tied
directly into the lesson of Godhaving protected Paul from the
shipwreck God answered prayersbecause Paul had obviously
(14:45):
prayed for God to protect him soit was a wonderful Wonderful
lead-in for the children.
God protected Paul.
God can protect us.
God listened to Paul's prayer.
God can listen to our prayer.
It was a wonderful tie-in, andit was a little bit different,
so it got their attention.
They still didn't pray out loud.
They normally don't for me, butthey did seem engaged with the
(15:07):
prayer.
They were very willing to givetheir prayer requests.
They did stay on task, and itreally went well.
But this wasn't a one-time eventwhere the lesson just so
happened to tie in perfectlywith prayer request and praying
time.
If you really look at it, youmight be surprised at how many
lessons can tie into prayer.
(15:27):
I would even say all of them cantie into prayer because when it
comes right down to it, everySunday school lesson is about
God, right?
So every Sunday school lessoncan in some way be about talking
to God or what happens if youdon't talk to God.
Every single lesson can tie intoprayer and should to some extent
tie into prayer.
Yes we are still trying to teachthem other things and we
(15:49):
definitely need to drive thosepoints home but every single
time we can tie it into talkingto the one we're talking about.
Now in my opinion the biggestreason that people don't pray in
the Sunday school room and thiswas the reason for me for years
and years and years is becauseyou are terrified of it.
(16:10):
I was that teacher.
Let's be honest.
I am that teacher still.
I am terrified that thosechildren are judging me.
That I'm going to mess it up infront of them and they're going
to be like oh well you didn'tpray right.
And even worse I'm afraid thatany adult teachers in front of
me no matter how close friendswe are I'm afraid that they will
(16:31):
judge me.
And I know they're not butsomehow it doesn't actually
matter.
In the moment I'm like ohthey're going to think that I'm
the worst prayer ever.
That I'm not close to God.
That I'm just fumbling in frontof them because I've never
prayed before in my entire life.
It's obviously not true but itdoesn't matter.
In the moment that is exactlywhat's going on through my mind.
(16:51):
I'm also afraid that maybe I'vebeen praying wrong all along and
I'm not actually doing itappropriately and I'm going to
be teaching the kids wrong orthey're going to go home to
their parents and say, oh,Sister Christina taught me to
pray this way.
And the parent's like, what?
Are you kidding me?
She's not supposed to say, oh,Lord.
She's supposed to say, oh,Father, she's wrong.
(17:13):
Why is this person teaching mykids?
As you can tell, my brain reallytakes things way too far.
This is obviously something thatwould absolutely never happen,
but it doesn't matter.
It stopped me from praying infront of the kids for years.
And guess what?
Some of these fears actuallycome to pass.
I just prayed for some of mykids in Sunday school and I
(17:35):
thought, you know what, not allof them had a request, but I'm
going to call every single oneof them by name and pray that
God takes care of them, takescare of their week, whatever.
And so I did.
I prayed for every single one ofthem by name.
Now, I've mentioned earlier thatI have to write down prayer
requests before I teach them,otherwise I'm going to forget.
So me trying to list my 10students by name without
(17:56):
forgetting any one of them isgoing to be really difficult for
me, especially since I actuallydo have a little bit of stage
fright when I'm praying so thatwas a bit of a challenge for me
so I had to visually look atevery single one of them to
remember their names and forsome reason when I got about
halfway through the students Isuddenly wasn't sure if I had
(18:16):
mentioned a student that I hadalready visually passed and so I
just said her name and kept ongoing prayed all the way through
we finished up and one of thekids goes hey you mentioned me
twice and the other kids ofcourse backed that up yeah you
mentioned her twice so Yeah,sometimes the kids are going to
(18:38):
call you on it.
But looking back on it, was thatreally so bad?
No, it wasn't.
And I think I made a decentrecovery.
I think I said something to theeffect of, oh, well, you know,
God loves you so much thatyou're worth mentioning twice.
And you know what?
You're worth mentioning twicetoo.
And you're worth mentioningtwice too.
So I made sure to point to everykid and let them know that they
would be worth mentioning twicetoo.
It was a little embarrassing.
(18:58):
I did mess up.
I did get caught on it.
I did get called on it.
But you know what?
That really wasn't judgment.
They weren't angry.
They weren't upset.
They just noticed and wanted topoint out that they had noticed.
That's all it was.
And you know what?
That's actually great becausethey were paying attention.
They were listening.
But it still doesn't make thefears go away.
(19:20):
So if you're just starting outpraying in your Sunday school
room, please just do it.
And don't be afraid to script aprayer.
It's not wrong.
It's not unbiblical.
Jesus even gave us an outlinefor a prayer.
when he gave us what we call theLord's Prayer.
That was just kind of basicallyan outline.
And when I had to start and whenI first started praying in front
of the kids I did end up writingmyself outlines.
(19:43):
Now obviously I don't know whatthe prayer requests are going to
be before I go in but you dohave a basic idea like a kid is
going to pray for ask you topray for healing or they're
going to ask for a family memberjust to be taken care of in
general.
And maybe they're going to askyou to pray for a pet.
So I would just take the mostbasic prayer requests and
(20:04):
actually kind of script themout.
And I would actually write theentire thing not even outline an
outline for me I would write itword for word with just gaps
missing for names of the kidsthe pets whatever because I was
so nervous that I needed to dothat and don't be afraid to do
that it's just a tool to helpyou move forward with this and
(20:26):
as you keep going it is going toget a bit more natural now if
you're like me you're stillgoing to need to write down the
prayer requests because youcan't remember them at all but
it is getting more natural and Iwill say I am not fully there I
am not the a person who can getup in front of adults still and
pray my heart out and not feellike the stupidest person in the
(20:46):
world.
I'm fine at home.
I don't have a problem prayingat home.
Not self-conscious there.
I do just fine.
But you know what?
I'm a work in progress.
So let me give you a little bitof encouragement.
You do not have to be a prayerwarrior.
Just be willing.
And the kids aren't judging yourwords, even though sometimes it
seems like it.
They're just watching yourexample and it means a lot to
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them.
And it's okay to be nervous.
It's okay to keep it short.
Don't worry about using bigfancy words.
It's been said many timesbefore, but we rarely take it
seriously that prayer is just aconversation, just talking to
God.
And we don't always really dothat when we're praying in front
of kids.
We do throw in a lot of We maythrow in a lot of church jargon
(21:32):
or fancy words just to make usfeel like it's an official
prayer, but don't worry aboutthat.
Make it understandable for thekids.
Use simple words.
It's fine.
It doesn't have to be hard.
In fact, it's better if it'seasy.
We're not trying to impressthem.
We're trying to teach them.
And when it comes down to it,it's the faithfulness of it that
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counts.
Pray every week with them.
It doesn't have to be long.
Just keep it short.
But be consistent.
Be faithful.
So let me give you a littlechallenge.
What I just said, be consistent,be faithful, that's your
challenge.
Just try to keep consistentprayer time for one month.
Just four Sundays.
Give yourself a time limit.
(22:14):
60 seconds of prayer.
Actually, you know what?
I think mine are a lot less.
30 seconds of prayer.
It may take you one to twominutes, depending on the size
of your class, to gather upthose really quick prayer
requests, but 30 seconds ofprayer?
You can absolutely do that fourtimes in the next month.
And when you're done, just kindof keep a note of how it went.
(22:35):
You'll be really surprised athow well it actually goes.
And listen, prayer doesn'tderail your lesson.
Prayer is the lesson.
This is what we're teachingkids.
We are teaching kids to have arelationship with God and we're
teaching them his word.
We're teaching them how to actlike Jesus.
We're teaching them how to livetheir lives.
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For all the Christianity we'reteaching them, we've taught them
nothing if we haven't taughtthem how to communicate with the
person that we're serving.
Prayer is the lesson.
So thank you for hanging outtoday.
And if you enjoyed this, makesure to subscribe and follow.
But before you go, here's yourSunday school tip of the week.
This is something I've heard ofother teachers doing.
(23:18):
So disclaimer, I haven't done ityet, but it is definitely
something I'm going to try.
Keep track of answered prayers.
Ask your kids every week if Godanswered any of their prayers.
When they have an answer foryou, write it down.
Write it down on a board.
Maybe put it on a little noteand put it in a jar that you
fill up with these testimonies.
Whatever you want to do.
But at the end of a quarter, ayear, whatever time frame you
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designate, pull it out.
Read those answered prayers.
We know that our God is a prayeranswering God.
But sometimes it really helpsfor us to be able to see that.
To be able to look at them andsay, oh wow, he did do these
things and I remember.
It really helps our faith togrow like the little mustard
seed.
And not only does it helps us,it helps our children to grow.
(24:00):
For them to go back andremember, oh yeah, God really
did answer this prayer and heanswered that prayer and he
answered it for me and heanswered it for my friends.
It is a wonderful faith builderand I can't wait to do this in
my class.
So that's it for now.
See you in two weeks.
Welcome to She Teaches Sunday.
My name is Christina.
The goal of this podcast is justsome real talk about teaching
kids in a Sunday school setting.
We'll talk about what works,what flops, and basically
surviving the chaos.
I have about 15 years ofexperience teaching Sunday
school, but I'm still learningevery single time I get in the
classroom.
This isn't going to be expertadvice.
(00:20):
These are just lessons taughtthrough experience that I'd love
to share with you.
Welcome to She Teaches Sunday.
I want to talk today aboutprayer in the Sunday school
class.
Now, little disclaimer.
I know a lot of you are alreadydoing this, but not everybody
does.
And those who don't do it aren'tskipping it because they think
it's a waste of time, pointless,or anything like that.
(00:42):
So for those of you who arealready praying in their Sunday
school class, awesome.
For those who aren't, I dounderstand.
There are a lot of reasons toavoid prayer in class.
Now, we all know.
That it's not something that weshould avoid.
But we have some arguablylegitimate reasons for skipping
prayer time in the classroom.
(01:03):
To be honest, one of them wouldbe it gets out of hand fast.
The kids aren't taking itseriously and they decide prayer
request is the time where theystart telling you about all the
negative things that happen intheir week.
Not because they want you topray about it, but because they
want to talk about it.
Another thing that I've had isthe copy-paste prayers.
One kid's like, well, I'd liketo pray about my dog.
(01:25):
And then all of a sudden everyother kid wants to pray about a
dog too.
Whether or not they actuallyhave one, they'll find somebody
who has a dog and then want youto pray about that dog.
They don't really think aboutwhat they actually want prayed.
They just want to copy theperson who went ahead of them.
If you have older kids, youmight deal with unspoken prayer
(01:46):
requests.
Which are fine.
But you have one kid that goes,well, unspoken.
And then the next kid...
Unspoken.
Unspoken.
Now you're normally going to getthat with the older age groups
and that might be frustrating aswell because you want to
actually pray for their needsand they're just saying
unspoken.
And disclaimer, it's not a badthing, but I do understand as a
(02:06):
teacher that we want to kind ofreally show them what prayer is
about and not have to pray forthese vague, we'll take care of
so-and-so and so-and-so andso-and-so because of...
they have some sort of problemthey need help.
Other problems would be theclass clown decides it's time to
tell a joke during this time.
Another reason is timerestraints.
We may only have 25 minutes, 45minutes to teach a Sunday school
(02:30):
class and while, yes, prayerdoesn't take that long, it takes
so long to get through a Sundayschool class with so many things
to do that it definitely startsto feel like stuff needs to be
cut and prayer is an easy thingto cut.
But the biggest reason that alot us don't pray in the Sunday
school class is because we'rescared to.
We're scared to pray in front ofothers even if it's just
(02:51):
children.
And I get that.
If you're the same way, it doesnot mean that you're a bad
teacher.
I definitely believe that weshould have prayer in the Sunday
school room, but if you haven'tbeen doing it up until now,
don't blame yourself.
Moving forward, definitely doit, but it's okay.
I get it.
I am the exact same person.
I am the one who has been scaredof teaching in the Sunday school
(03:13):
class for years.
Now, I do want to go over alittle bit of why prayer matters
in the Sunday school classroom.
So I think all of us areprobably pretty much on the same
page about how important prayeris, how much it could actually
be useful or needed in theSunday school room.
So I probably don't even need tolist any of those things, but I
think I'm going to anyway justbecause I want.
(03:35):
It's good to have a reminder ofwhy this thing called prayer is
so important for us and soimportant for us to do in front
of kids.
One of the major ones is wemight be the only ones showing
them this.
Not every kid goes to church ona regular basis or has parents
that go to church on a regularbasis.
(03:56):
And even some of the parents whogo to church regularly may not
be praying at home or maybe theyhave very private prayer times
where the kids just aren'thearing prayers.
Kids need to be hearing prayers.
They need to be seeing otherpeople praying.
We are an example to them and itis very, very important.
So it's something they need tobe seeing.
And prayer is actually the mosttransferable part of what we
(04:19):
teach.
So we're teaching them all kindsof different lessons and
characteristics that they needto be learning, things about
God, random facts about Biblestories.
We're teaching them a lot in ourSunday school class.
But prayer is the easiest thingfor them to take away from that
lesson.
It's the easiest thing for themto remember how to use.
(04:40):
We can teach them a lesson aboutforgiveness and they may get it
but have a little bit of troubleapplying it once they get out of
the classroom because you knowsomebody makes them angry.
It's very hard to remember ohmaybe I should forgive them in
that moment.
And it's something we'reteaching them but I get that
it's something that's hard toapply.
Prayer on the other hand issomething that's very very easy
(05:03):
easy to apply they may rememberoh I have a need let me ask God
to help with it it's somethingthat's very very easy to do I
think maybe it's because we'reselfish by nature but it's easy
to remember oh I want this or Ineed this let me talk to
somebody who can help me withthat and while I know it does
(05:24):
seem like a selfish way oflooking at it if we can get
these kids praying it's reallygoing to make a world of
difference.
And it's something that we caneasily, easily teach them to do.
We just have to be modeling itfor them.
It's an example for them.
We are the example.
And we're not showing them justhow to ask God for stuff,
(05:45):
although it may seem like itstarts that way.
We're actually starting to showthem how to talk to God and how
to listen to God.
Now they learn to pray bywatching us pray.
So remember that.
They're learning by example andwe're actually one of their
examples.
Hopefully we're not their onlyexample, but keep in mind that
(06:06):
it is a possibility that wemight be that only example.
And as we keep doing it fromweek to week, it actually does
become less scary and morenatural.
So I did go over before, there'sa lot of challenges with this.
You wouldn't think so, but theredefinitely is.
So some of the ones I mentionedwould be like time crunch.
(06:27):
I just don't have time to prayin the classroom.
I only have, say, 25 minutes andI've got to go through the
lesson.
I've got to go through thecraft.
I've got to go through maybe agame.
I've got to do something to kindof make it stick to them.
I need to do some sort ofwelcome.
I need to delay the first 10minutes of class because all of
my students come in late and Idon't want to start without all
(06:49):
the kids there.
There's a lot...
of reasons and time crunch isprobably one of the biggest.
Instead of eliminating prayer ingeneral, just kind of limit the
prayer request time.
And don't be afraid to say,we're going to do quick one
sentence requests and kind ofpare it down and keep them from
going on and on and on and onand on.
(07:10):
If you're in a class and thereare so many prayer requests that
you can't remember them all whenyou go to pray, and this is if
you have the time to do it, Iwrite them down.
I can't remember.
The kids have so many prayerrequests that if you have time
to do them, definitely if youcan't remember, write them down.
It doesn't take away from yourcredibility of prayer to have to
(07:31):
be reading the prayer requestsfrom a piece of paper.
It really doesn't.
If you're in a time crunch andyou're kind of noticing after a
couple of requests that thereare similar requests, maybe you
could group some of thoserequests.
You could say, well, it soundslike a lot of us are praying for
family.
Let's just go ahead and pray foreverybody's family.
Now, I will say that...
(07:51):
That's only if you're in a timecrunch.
If you actually have time tolisten to each individual prayer
request even if you tell them tokeep it to one it is a lot more
meaningful to them to hear youpray for their specific need.
So whenever possible I woulddefinitely recommend trying to
do them individually.
But then again I get it.
If there's a time crunch just goahead and group them.
(08:15):
Now for those kids who aregiving silly or repetitive
requests, that's a little bitmore challenging and it doesn't
help if the silly request comesin early.
That means everybody else iscopying them and so the first
one says, oh, I want to pray formy little sister's toy.
(08:36):
Then all of the sudden the nextperson wants to play for their
little brother's toy and so onand so forth.
So if you have a lot of that, Iwould start with teaching what a
prayer request is and let themknow, hey, we're going to do
prayer requests now.
And prayer requests is forsomething that we believe God
will help with.
This isn't something that'sgoing to be silly.
(08:56):
This is something real,something we need God to help us
with.
And if they still do somethingkind of on the silly side, maybe
they're not trying to be silly,and this is especially with the
younger kids.
They're like, oh, I need you topray for my little pet turtle's
toe.
He stubbed his toe.
As long as it isn't aninappropriate kind of prayer
(09:16):
request, just pray for it.
Maybe the turtle really did hurthis toe.
And even if the turtle didn'thurt his toe, turtle doesn't
care, turtle doesn't know,turtle doesn't exist, it's going
to mean a lot to that kid thatyou paid attention to their
prayer request, took itseriously, and prayed for their
turtle's toe.
Now for kids who won'tparticipate at all or those who
(09:37):
share off-topic stuff, If that'sthe kind of group you have in
general maybe start off by usingprompts to kind of keep them on
track like is anyone's familygoing through a hard time or who
knows anyone who's been sick andkind of keep them on that same
track.
Maybe in some cases, instead ofasking for prayer requests, we
(10:01):
could say something like, we'reeach going to think of one thing
that we're thankful for, andlet's pray a prayer of thanks
today instead of makingrequests.
And that's something I might doanyway.
Not every single week,definitely pray for requests,
but every now and then.
just give a prayer ofthankfulness.
It's something that biblicallywe need to be doing anyway, so
let's teach them to be thankful.
(10:22):
And on the plus side, it doeskind of keep them on track and
not getting all distracted andbeing silly.
Now another big problem that wehave sometimes, and I hadn't
mentioned this yet, is dependingon the group of kids, sometimes
when you go to pray, kids arebored with prayer.
They're bored of prayer time.
They don't want to do it.
(10:43):
Sometimes prayer feels like thetime when the class just
collectively just zones out.
Now in my case, first and secondgraders, they're kind of always
distracted anyway, not zonedout, but not paying attention.
So for me, prayer time's aboutthe same as any other time.
They don't really want to payattention.
Now kids are generally...
not quiet.
They're noisy all of the timebut I find that when you ask
(11:07):
them to pray out loud, notsingling them out but kind of
praying out loud as a group,suddenly they are all about the
meekness.
They're just as quiet as can be.
They don't want to talk.
All of a sudden they get thatsame self-consciousness that
some of us adults have to dealwith with praying.
They don't want to do it.
They seem to be scared to.
(11:27):
So if they're scared I'm notgoing to make them do it.
But I'd rather them not all justbow their heads and try to be
quiet while they listen to mepray.
Prayer isn't about one persontalking to God and everybody
else listening to that oneperson talk to God.
Prayer is about talking to God.
Not just me.
For all the kids too.
(11:47):
Now I can tell them this and I'mdefinitely going to encourage
them to pray to God themselveswhile I'm praying and they're
probably just going to listen tome anyway.
But I do want to encourage themthat it's their time to talk to
God as well.
They don't have to just listento me.
We can all be praying out loudat the same time.
It is all good.
And maybe it would even helphaving an example of someone
(12:08):
doing just that.
Get your co-teacher if you haveone involved.
Get them to pray out loud whileyou're praying out loud too.
Get some noise up before thethrone of God.
Show them that it is notsomething to be ashamed of and
it is not something to be scaredof.
We're kind of teaching ourselvesthis right along with teaching
them.
We're also teaching them thatthis isn't a show.
(12:30):
It's not just one person givingtheir performance of a prayer.
Oh, Lord, thou art the greatestGod in all the earth, and we
beseech thee to answer ourprayers.
It's not that.
It is all of us sincerelytalking to the one who can
actually hear us and make adifference in our lives.
(12:53):
And we want to show them how topray.
Prayer isn't boring.
But we have to show them that.
If we get them all to quietlybow their heads, fold their
hands, and listen to us drone onin Old English, yeah, it's going
to be boring to them.
And that's not what we want toshow them.
A kind of cool idea though tomaking it a little more exciting
(13:16):
when going into prayer is tokind of change up how you do it
every week, every quarter,something to that effect.
An example is when I wasteaching a kindergarten class
years ago, I think it wasactually the curriculum book
recommended getting an umbrellaone lesson and sitting on the
floor having the children gatheraround you and you explain that
the umbrella is...
I don't know I think it wassomething like a God's covering
(13:38):
or something and it wasexplained in a way that was
appropriate for that age groupand we would pray under the
umbrella all kind of huddled upand hugging and they loved it
and it was supposed to have beenjust a one week thing and
instead I did it for I think theentire quarter maybe longer
because they loved that changethey loved huddling under the
(13:59):
umbrella it was something newand different and I recently
just tried something differentwith my first and second graders
as well we were teaching aboutPaul and his journeys and so we
were having fun with a ship andso I had cleared most of the
chairs and tables so the floorwas kind of open and we were
doing the adventure and we werepretending to be in the boat
wave splashing all that funstuff and at the very end after
(14:22):
we had had a shipwreck swam toMalta I got them all to sit on
the floor and in the floorsurrounded by children is when
we did the prayer request sothat was different normally we'd
be sitting at a table doing aprayer request after the lesson
this was totally different andit was wonderful because it tied
directly into the lesson of Godhaving protected Paul from the
shipwreck God answered prayersbecause Paul had obviously
(14:45):
prayed for God to protect him soit was a wonderful Wonderful
lead-in for the children.
God protected Paul.
God can protect us.
God listened to Paul's prayer.
God can listen to our prayer.
It was a wonderful tie-in, andit was a little bit different,
so it got their attention.
They still didn't pray out loud.
They normally don't for me, butthey did seem engaged with the
(15:07):
prayer.
They were very willing to givetheir prayer requests.
They did stay on task, and itreally went well.
But this wasn't a one-time eventwhere the lesson just so
happened to tie in perfectlywith prayer request and praying
time.
If you really look at it, youmight be surprised at how many
lessons can tie into prayer.
(15:27):
I would even say all of them cantie into prayer because when it
comes right down to it, everySunday school lesson is about
God, right?
So every Sunday school lessoncan in some way be about talking
to God or what happens if youdon't talk to God.
Every single lesson can tie intoprayer and should to some extent
tie into prayer.
Yes we are still trying to teachthem other things and we
(15:49):
definitely need to drive thosepoints home but every single
time we can tie it into talkingto the one we're talking about.
Now in my opinion the biggestreason that people don't pray in
the Sunday school room and thiswas the reason for me for years
and years and years is becauseyou are terrified of it.
(16:10):
I was that teacher.
Let's be honest.
I am that teacher still.
I am terrified that thosechildren are judging me.
That I'm going to mess it up infront of them and they're going
to be like oh well you didn'tpray right.
And even worse I'm afraid thatany adult teachers in front of
me no matter how close friendswe are I'm afraid that they will
(16:31):
judge me.
And I know they're not butsomehow it doesn't actually
matter.
In the moment I'm like ohthey're going to think that I'm
the worst prayer ever.
That I'm not close to God.
That I'm just fumbling in frontof them because I've never
prayed before in my entire life.
It's obviously not true but itdoesn't matter.
In the moment that is exactlywhat's going on through my mind.
(16:51):
I'm also afraid that maybe I'vebeen praying wrong all along and
I'm not actually doing itappropriately and I'm going to
be teaching the kids wrong orthey're going to go home to
their parents and say, oh,Sister Christina taught me to
pray this way.
And the parent's like, what?
Are you kidding me?
She's not supposed to say, oh,Lord.
She's supposed to say, oh,Father, she's wrong.
(17:13):
Why is this person teaching mykids?
As you can tell, my brain reallytakes things way too far.
This is obviously something thatwould absolutely never happen,
but it doesn't matter.
It stopped me from praying infront of the kids for years.
And guess what?
Some of these fears actuallycome to pass.
I just prayed for some of mykids in Sunday school and I
(17:35):
thought, you know what, not allof them had a request, but I'm
going to call every single oneof them by name and pray that
God takes care of them, takescare of their week, whatever.
And so I did.
I prayed for every single one ofthem by name.
Now, I've mentioned earlier thatI have to write down prayer
requests before I teach them,otherwise I'm going to forget.
So me trying to list my 10students by name without
(17:56):
forgetting any one of them isgoing to be really difficult for
me, especially since I actuallydo have a little bit of stage
fright when I'm praying so thatwas a bit of a challenge for me
so I had to visually look atevery single one of them to
remember their names and forsome reason when I got about
halfway through the students Isuddenly wasn't sure if I had
(18:16):
mentioned a student that I hadalready visually passed and so I
just said her name and kept ongoing prayed all the way through
we finished up and one of thekids goes hey you mentioned me
twice and the other kids ofcourse backed that up yeah you
mentioned her twice so Yeah,sometimes the kids are going to
(18:38):
call you on it.
But looking back on it, was thatreally so bad?
No, it wasn't.
And I think I made a decentrecovery.
I think I said something to theeffect of, oh, well, you know,
God loves you so much thatyou're worth mentioning twice.
And you know what?
You're worth mentioning twicetoo.
And you're worth mentioningtwice too.
So I made sure to point to everykid and let them know that they
would be worth mentioning twicetoo.
It was a little embarrassing.
(18:58):
I did mess up.
I did get caught on it.
I did get called on it.
But you know what?
That really wasn't judgment.
They weren't angry.
They weren't upset.
They just noticed and wanted topoint out that they had noticed.
That's all it was.
And you know what?
That's actually great becausethey were paying attention.
They were listening.
But it still doesn't make thefears go away.
(19:20):
So if you're just starting outpraying in your Sunday school
room, please just do it.
And don't be afraid to script aprayer.
It's not wrong.
It's not unbiblical.
Jesus even gave us an outlinefor a prayer.
when he gave us what we call theLord's Prayer.
That was just kind of basicallyan outline.
And when I had to start and whenI first started praying in front
of the kids I did end up writingmyself outlines.
(19:43):
Now obviously I don't know whatthe prayer requests are going to
be before I go in but you dohave a basic idea like a kid is
going to pray for ask you topray for healing or they're
going to ask for a family memberjust to be taken care of in
general.
And maybe they're going to askyou to pray for a pet.
So I would just take the mostbasic prayer requests and
(20:04):
actually kind of script themout.
And I would actually write theentire thing not even outline an
outline for me I would write itword for word with just gaps
missing for names of the kidsthe pets whatever because I was
so nervous that I needed to dothat and don't be afraid to do
that it's just a tool to helpyou move forward with this and
(20:26):
as you keep going it is going toget a bit more natural now if
you're like me you're stillgoing to need to write down the
prayer requests because youcan't remember them at all but
it is getting more natural and Iwill say I am not fully there I
am not the a person who can getup in front of adults still and
pray my heart out and not feellike the stupidest person in the
(20:46):
world.
I'm fine at home.
I don't have a problem prayingat home.
Not self-conscious there.
I do just fine.
But you know what?
I'm a work in progress.
So let me give you a little bitof encouragement.
You do not have to be a prayerwarrior.
Just be willing.
And the kids aren't judging yourwords, even though sometimes it
seems like it.
They're just watching yourexample and it means a lot to
(21:09):
them.
And it's okay to be nervous.
It's okay to keep it short.
Don't worry about using bigfancy words.
It's been said many timesbefore, but we rarely take it
seriously that prayer is just aconversation, just talking to
God.
And we don't always really dothat when we're praying in front
of kids.
We do throw in a lot of We maythrow in a lot of church jargon
(21:32):
or fancy words just to make usfeel like it's an official
prayer, but don't worry aboutthat.
Make it understandable for thekids.
Use simple words.
It's fine.
It doesn't have to be hard.
In fact, it's better if it'seasy.
We're not trying to impressthem.
We're trying to teach them.
And when it comes down to it,it's the faithfulness of it that
(21:53):
counts.
Pray every week with them.
It doesn't have to be long.
Just keep it short.
But be consistent.
Be faithful.
So let me give you a littlechallenge.
What I just said, be consistent,be faithful, that's your
challenge.
Just try to keep consistentprayer time for one month.
Just four Sundays.
Give yourself a time limit.
(22:14):
60 seconds of prayer.
Actually, you know what?
I think mine are a lot less.
30 seconds of prayer.
It may take you one to twominutes, depending on the size
of your class, to gather upthose really quick prayer
requests, but 30 seconds ofprayer?
You can absolutely do that fourtimes in the next month.
And when you're done, just kindof keep a note of how it went.
(22:35):
You'll be really surprised athow well it actually goes.
And listen, prayer doesn'tderail your lesson.
Prayer is the lesson.
This is what we're teachingkids.
We are teaching kids to have arelationship with God and we're
teaching them his word.
We're teaching them how to actlike Jesus.
We're teaching them how to livetheir lives.
(22:56):
For all the Christianity we'reteaching them, we've taught them
nothing if we haven't taughtthem how to communicate with the
person that we're serving.
Prayer is the lesson.
So thank you for hanging outtoday.
And if you enjoyed this, makesure to subscribe and follow.
But before you go, here's yourSunday school tip of the week.
This is something I've heard ofother teachers doing.
(23:18):
So disclaimer, I haven't done ityet, but it is definitely
something I'm going to try.
Keep track of answered prayers.
Ask your kids every week if Godanswered any of their prayers.
When they have an answer foryou, write it down.
Write it down on a board.
Maybe put it on a little noteand put it in a jar that you
fill up with these testimonies.
Whatever you want to do.
But at the end of a quarter, ayear, whatever time frame you
(23:39):
designate, pull it out.
Read those answered prayers.
We know that our God is a prayeranswering God.
But sometimes it really helpsfor us to be able to see that.
To be able to look at them andsay, oh wow, he did do these
things and I remember.
It really helps our faith togrow like the little mustard
seed.
And not only does it helps us,it helps our children to grow.
(24:00):
For them to go back andremember, oh yeah, God really
did answer this prayer and heanswered that prayer and he
answered it for me and heanswered it for my friends.
It is a wonderful faith builderand I can't wait to do this in
my class.
So that's it for now.
See you in two weeks.
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