Prayerfulness

Prayerfulness, Peter Adam (Matthias Media, 2025)

Peter Adam has drawn on his years of experience in biblical teaching, pastoral ministry and personal prayer to create a wonderful resource for Christians wanting to grow and deepen their prayerfulness. His main encouragement is to have our prayers anchored in God’s word. To let the bible shape our praying, whether it be praise, thanksgiving, confession, lament, or supplication. 

“Prayerfulness is a sign of a healthy life of faith, of trust, of dependence on God’s grace, of gospel clarity, and lifelong learning from the BIble. Most of all, prayerfulness, enriched by the BIble, demonstrates a rich relationship with God the Father to whom we pray, God the Son our Saviour through whom we pray, and God the Holy Spirit who teaches us to pray in the Bible, and who prompts us and helps us to pray.“ (p7)

I really appreciated the Trinitarian perspective throughout: 

“God is our loving heavenly Father who loves to hear our prayers. His son, the Lord Jesus Christ, prayed to his father when he was on earth, and now prays for us at God's right hand. The Holy Spirit reminds us that we are children of God, prompts us to pray to our Father, and covers our ignorance in praying.” (p27)

We can pray God’s promises back to him, and ask him to act on them. Therefore, our view of God will influence our prayers: 

“Little God, little prayers. Big God, big prayers.” (p38)

Adam first explores what prayer is - our communication with God. Some may have appreciated a clear, short definition at this point. However, since the whole book expands our definition of prayer, maybe that would be too simplistic. He then turns to some of the reasons we don’t pray, including overconfidence in ourselves, cultural challenges, internalising reality, and sin. These were helpful prompts to consider the multifaceted factors that can lead to prayerlessness and how to address them personally.

The majority of the book encourages the reader to pray biblical prayers. This includes writing prayers responsively to reading God’s word, and using it to shape our confessions, lament and praise. He reasons that God loves and hears all our prayers, including the simple, cautious and uncertain ones, but he also wants us to grow in our prayers and communication with him, to go deeper. He comments that “God loves you as you are, but he loves you too much to leave you as you are” (p178). What a great mix of comfort and challenge! For, as Adam says, “If you can’t turn a bible passage into prayer, you probably can’t put it into practice.” (p105)

Chapters further explore the practice of praying the bible, the Lord’s Prayer, and Jesus and the apostles’ model of prayer. He covers lament, repentance and confession, as well as praying for spiritual protection, and how to think about unanswered prayer. He addresses corporate prayer and confession, and gives guidance to those who pray publicly. Woven throughout, and collated into one chapter at the end, are lots of practical ideas and tips to help the praying person who wants to learn and grow in this discipline.

About half the book contains content - Adam’s input and thoughts. The other half contains numerous prayers that Adam has written. These could be used as they are or could prompt one to write their own prayers. Some may feel long, but they are a great resource and encouragement to have higher expectations of our prayers. I would have loved to see these available as a digital version, especially so that people could adapt them to their own purpose (practically for copyright reasons, that could be tricky). They also have a wide usage: there were individual prayers, corporate prayers and even suggestions for services of lament.

I had only two niggles. One is that it was on the long side and felt repetitive at points. Yet, some parts felt generalised and could have been more specific or illustrated further. However, this does allow the reader to adapt it for themselves. The second was that there was a lot of “should” language throughout. It could have been worded more encouragingly and less like a command at points. Other language (like: we want to, it is useful to, it is of benefit to, etc) is perhaps more inviting.

This is certainly not the first book I have read on prayer. Over the decades, I have been encouraged by many, including Praying the Scriptures for Your Children (Berndt), A Praying Life (Miller), and Prayer (Keller). Each of these challenged me to grow in my prayer life and to put the time and effort into that process. Therefore, Adam’s comments that we must learn how to pray and we need training with it struck me. We should be teaching one another how to pray better, both new believers and seasoned saints. I can’t imagine anyone who thinks their prayer life is as rich, varied or scripture-focused as it could be. For those who want to explore this more and learn practical ways to do so, this book is an excellent step in that direction. 

Praying Through the Bible for Your Kids

The One Year Praying Through the Bible for Your Kids, Nancy Guthrie

If you are a parent, I highly recommend this devotional book by Nancy Guthrie. It combines a one-year bible reading plan with commentary and prayers for parents. So, not only are you getting your daily input of bible reading organised and suggested for you, she has picked something each day to comment on and respond to which is relevant to your life situation.

There are four bible readings each day: Old Testament, New Testament, Psalms (covered twice) and Proverbs. I was a little surprised by the decision to spread the Proverbs over the whole year, with only a verse or two a day. However, the decision to cover the New Testament only once over the year, meant it could be read in a little more detail than some other reading plans.

Increasingly, devotional books do not actually dwell in the bible, rather they dwell in the author’s thoughts about the bible. But here, if you take the time to read the assigned passages, much more time is spent in the actual word of God, which is richer by far.

Guthrie extends your thinking though, by offering a commentary on one of the passages, in a way that is applicable to raising children. There is much to ponder and reflect on here, as well as to be challenged by. Each day finishes with a written prayer to bring before God about the passages read, applicable in some way to parenting.

What I loved was that many passages were not so much praying for your children (although there certainly were those), but so many were praying about our parenting. Our sin, our failings, the grace extended to us, and the mercy that is new each morning. She applies the scalpel of God’s word to parents and challenges them to consider their own hearts and motivations. She reminds parents that God is also parenting them: loving them, caring for them and comforting them in their struggles. She exhorts parents to live godly lives that speak grace to their kids and to speak the gospel into their lives.

Yet, there are also numerous prayers to bring our children to the Lord, change their hearts, grow them in fruit of the spirit, change them to be like Christ, and prevent them from conforming to the ways of the world.

I did use it for a year and found it to be very encouraging and very challenging about our parenting, and I am about to start it all over again. It made me more biblically prayerful for my kids and it grounded me in God’s word. Highly recommended.

5 things to pray for your church

5 things to pray for your church, Rachel Jones

I recently discovered this excellent prayer resource by the Good Book Company. It’s one in a series which guide you in biblical, specific prayer for various things, this one obviously being for your church. It’s a little book (smaller than A5) and just under 100 pages, but it packs a punch and is chock full of ideas for prayer.

Reading the title, I thought that there would only be five main things to pray for your church, but it is so much more than that. It is actually five things to pray under each of four main categories and with extensive sub-categories under them, so you might pray for:

1. Praying that my church would:

• Remember what we are
• Be a body growing in maturity 
• Love and serve one another
• Make known God’s glory
• Give generously

2. Praying that I would:

• Use my gifts well 
• Persevere when I get weary

3. Praying for people in my church:

• For my church leader 
• My small group
• Children and young people
• Not-yet Christians
• The elderly

4.  Praying for the wider church:

• Another church near us
• Our mission partners
• Churches far away
• The unreached. 

All in all, there are 21 things to pray for, each supported by different bible verses and then five prayer points drawn from that scripture. Each prayer point is explained slightly, so you have actual specific ideas to bring to God, drawn from his word. So, there are ideas for praying for your church to keep you going over a month and then you could start all over again. Because of the way the prayer suggestions and who to pray for are worded, you could use it a little differently each time you use it. I've been praying for my church for years including people, leaders and ministry families, but this is more extensive and biblical than anything I have used before. Having said that I did notice that when praying for ministry leaders, their families were not included, which I would have liked to see. In addition, while young people, children and the elderly were prayed for – there was nothing about marrieds, singles, families, etc; and nothing about the sick, the unemployed or the marginalised. If the other books in this series as good: 5 things to pray for people you love, …for your heart, and …for your city (this last one by different authors), they would be well worth investigating. They would be a great set of resources to encourage you to biblical prayer that is wide ranging yet specific. 

Luther on Prayer

Sometimes I come across resources that are simply excellent, but I know not many people are going to attempt them. The writings of Luther could well fit into that category. However, if you are at all tempted to read some of Luther, his comments on prayer would be an excellent place to start.

Inspired by Keller's Prayer, I ordered a little book containing two of Luther's Works: Little Prayer Book, 1522 and A Simple Way to Pray, 1535. Both were treasures waiting to be discovered.  The whole volume is under 100 pages, and in a modern writing style, which I trust has retained the essence of Luther's German but in a way I can actually read, understand, savour and appreciate. They are extracted from a larger body of works, and the authorial comments (by Mary Jane Haemig and Eric Lund) help the reader to understand Luther's points and flow.

I'm not going to give an extensive review. Not only do I feel ill-equipped to review Martin Luther, but there is a vast chasm of time and experience between my life and his. Instead, I'll share with you some of his words and main points.

Little Prayer Book, 1522

Luther encouraged all people to earn and know the Ten Commandments, the Creed and the Lord's Prayer:

"Indeed, the total content of Scripture and preaching and everything a Christian needs to know is quite fully and richly comprehended in these three items. They summarise everything with such brevity and clarity that no one can complain or make any excuse that the things necessary for salvation are too complicated or difficult to remember."

So the commandments teach us our failings, the creed shows us where to find healing (grace) through God and his plan in Christ, and the Lord's Prayer teaches how to bring all this to God in prayer.  Luther then spends considerable time expounding what it would mean to break each commandment and what it would be to keep each. These would bring any believer in humble repentance before God.

The same detail is then given to the creed in sections and the Lord's prayer (and shorter to the Hail Mary, which I chose not to spend much time in).  The depth of his thought brings the reader to a truer understanding of what it really means to trust in Jesus and follow him with your whole life.

Here is just a section on possible prayer on Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven:

"Your will is at all times the best, to be cherished and desired above everything else. Therefore have mercy upon us, O dear Father, and let nothing happen just because it is our own will. Grant and teach us a a deep patience in times when our will is preventing from happening or comes to nothing. Help when others contradict our will by what they say or do, do or leave rundown, that we not become angry or vexed, not curse, complain, protest... 

Grant us grace to bear willingly all sorts of sickness, poverty, disgrace suffering, and adversity and to recognise that in them your divine will is crucifying our will."  

Regarding the Lord's Prayer:

"I am convinced that when Christian rightly pray the Lord's Prayer at any time or use any portion of it as they may desire, their praying is more than adequate. What is important for a good prayer is not many words, as Christ says in Matthew 6, but rather a turning to God frequently and with heartfelt longing and, doing so without ceasing... get accustomed to praying this plain, ordinary, Christian prayer. The longer one devotes one's self to this kind of praying, the more sweet and joyous it becomes."

A Simple Way to Pray, 1535  

Written as a letter to his barber, this is more of a guide to prayer for a friend.  (you can view some of it online here)

With a wonderful starting line:

"I will tell you as best I can what I do personally when I pray. May our dear Lord grant to you and to everybody to do it better than I! Amen."

He proceeds to model how to pray through the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments in depth. There is a richness here which is so encouraging. He evens warns people against using his actual words so that they don't become rote, but rather using it as an example from which to spur you on in your own prayer.

About the Lord's prayer:

"It is the very best prayer, even better than the Psalter, which is so very dear to me. It is surely evident that a real master composed and taught it. What a great shame that the prayer of such a master is prattled and chattered so irreverently all over the world!"

About morning prayer:

"It is a good thing to let prayer be the first business of the morning and the last at night. Diligently guard against those false, deluding ideas which tell you, “Wait a little while, I will pray in an hour; first I must attend to this or that.” Such thoughts get your away from prayer into other affairs that so hold your attention and involve you that nothing comes of prayer for that day. This is especially so in emergencies when you have some task that seems as good or better than prayer."

This letter is where the idea that Keller quotes from Luther about praying 4 ways from a passage comes from:

• Instruction – what is the point of the passage, and what does God intend for the passage for me? This may be obvious or make take some thought.
• Thanksgiving – praise God for it.
• Confession – confess in response to it.
• Petition – ask God to act, for change in me or others.

And some comments on Amen:

"Finally mark this, that you must always speak the “Amen” firmly. Never doubt that God in his mercy will surely hear you and say “yes” to your prayers. Never think that you are kneeling or standing alone, rather think that the whole of Christendom, all devout Christians, are standing there beside you and you are standing among them in a common, united petition which God cannot disdain. Do not leave your prayer without having said or thought, “Very well, God has heard my prayer, this I know as a certainty and a truth.” That is what Amen means." 

I was encouraged and refreshed by this volume.

Developing a Healthy Prayer Life

Developing a Healthy Prayer Life: 31 Meditations on Communing with God, James W. Beeke and Joel R. Beeke (Reformation Heritage Books, 2010)

A talk series on prayer has led me again to investigate resources for prayer. I have come across some good ones.

This very short offering (under 100 pages) is designed to be used as a devotional, with 31 brief chapters covering numerous aspects of prayer. Starting with a definition of prayer as “the act of forging a connection between two specific points: our human needs and the resources of God offered to us in Christ”, it’s then extended to include expressing desires to God, embracing God’s will, confession, and worship. The reader is invited to be both challenged and encouraged by prayer, and to be changed by it.

They begin by addressing the question: “Who should pray?” and address some excuses why people don’t think they should pray, concluding “You are too sinful not to pray; sinners are the very people who need prayer. Therefore, pray.”

The following 29 chapters focus on different aspects of prayer, such as pray in Christ’s name, pray believingly, pray humbly, pray boldly, pray intercedingly, pray thankfully, pray dependently and pray against besetting sins. Each were instructive, helpful and bible based.

Some helpful things along the way:

“Prayer requires faith: believing in God, trusting in God, and placing our expectations in God.” (Ch 3) 

“You need humble boldness – humility when viewing your sinful self and boldness when viewing a reconciling Christ.” (Ch 7) 

[Regarding praying with thankfulness] “First we are to be thankful for mercies received… Second, we are to be thankful for trials endured… Third, we are to be thankful for the absolute goodness and infinite mercy of God expressed in His actions toward us in both prosperity and adversity.” (Ch 11) 

“In our prayer, God does not note the expressiveness of our voice, the multitude of our words, or regard the eloquence of our expressions. Rather, He observes the sincerity of our heart. To pray sincerely is to pray without pretence or deceit.” (Ch 17)

“We are to pray dependently, not independently, True prayer weans the petitioner from self-reliance.” (Ch 23) 

“Unfulfilled prayer can serve as a means to produce far deeper and more valuable benefits that those we originally requested. Unfulfilled prayer can teach us patience and contentment, surrendering and bowing before God…. Unfulfilled prayer can serve to teach us humility and dependency, to trust more in God and less in self.” (Ch 24) 

“Thoughtful prayer moves us from weakness to strength and from strength to glory. It binds us to God and comforts us in distress, pray not as a last resort, but in the increasing knowledge of God and His will." (Ch 30)

There was an appendix at the end with 31 Marks of True Prayer – they were helpful to read but I would have appreciated an explanation of where they came from, they seemed to be sourced from elsewhere.

I did have a couple of hesitations:

• Chapter 29 was about praying with scripture. I wasn’t sure why this was placed so late in the order, it would have been much better to have this much earlier. Indeed, there was no real logical to the order of the chapters.
• It was very disappointing that in 2010 they chose to use the KJV translation for all bible quotes. It makes the bible almost inaccessible to modern readers. Even the small number of suggested written prayers modelled the use thees & thys whereas all the other writing was modern. This implies you need to use different language for both bible reading and prayer than you use in daily life. It’s very unhelpful.
• It would have been both instructive and encouraging to have a short prayer or aid to prayer at the end of each devotional. Modelling such prayer, not just talking about prayer would have been beneficial.

So as an aid to consider prayer from multiple angles, it's a very helpful book with instructive prompts and challenges. With each chapter only ~2 pages, it's very, very readable. One a day would indeed be excellent food for thought over a month, and a way to analyse your prayer life in light of the teaching of scripture.

Note: it only appears to still be easily available as an eBook.

Prayer

Prayer, Timothy Keller

Sometimes you read something and think “Yes! This now THE book I will recommend to people on this topic”.

Timothy Keller states that as a pastor he “didn’t have a first book to give someone who wanted to understand and practice Christian prayer”. I think he has certainly met his own goal, outlining the theological, experiential and methodological in one volume. Long term readers will know I am a big fan of prayer having been challenged and encouraged by numerous books on the topic, such a A Praying Life, A Call to Spiritual Reformation, Praying the Scriptures for your Children, Pray for the World and books of prayers such as the Valley of Vision. I have done a series on praying with your family and once had a blog of prayers.

So, I am deeply committed to prayer, but by no means consider myself to be an expert. There is always more to learn, and I have been encouraged by Keller’s insights.

He arranges his work into five logical parts:

1. Desiring Prayer. As he explores both the necessity and the greatness of prayer, our vision is immediately lifted to seeing the extraordinary privilege of being able to pray and the need to prioritise it.

“Prayer is the only entryway into genuine self-knowledge. It is also the main way we experience deep change – the reordering of our loves. Prayer is how God gives us so many of the unimaginable things he has for us. Indeed, prayer makes it safe for God to give us may of the things we desire. It is the way we know God, the way we finally treat God as God. Prayer is simply the key to everything we need to do and be in life. We must learn to pray. We have to.” (p18) 

“Prayer is awe, intimacy, struggle – yet the way to reality. There is nothing more important, or harder, or richer, or more life-altering. There is absolutely nothing so great as prayer.” (p32)

2. Understanding Prayer – expanding that prayer is both conversing with God, through immersion in his word, and encountering God personally.

“Prayer is continuing a conversation that God has started through his Word and his grace, which eventually becomes a full encounter with him.” (p48)

It must however, be tethered to our knowledge of God through Scripture:

“Without immersion in God’s words, our prayer may not be merely limited and shallow but also untethered from reality. We may be responding not the real God but to what we wish God and life to be like.” (p62)

3. Learning Prayer

This was where I found the true gold. Taking us through the thoughts of Augustine, Calvin and Luther on the topic, Keller helps outline a way to closely link our bible reading and our prayer.

I particularly appreciated Luther’s two patterns. The first is to look at every part of scripture four ways: determine the point, praise God for the truths found in it, confess our failings regarding it, and pray for change for ourselves and others in response. I have started this practice myself and have been so encouraged by the breadth and depth to which I can understand and respond to God’s word. His second suggestion is to ‘riff’ the Lord’s prayer, taking each phrase in turn, and expounding on it in depth in prayer. I have heard this suggestion before, but am now encouraged to return to it in my own practice.

4. Deepening Prayer

By thinking about both what meditating on God’s word can look like, and encouraging us not to fear experiencing God in prayer; Keller expands both the evangelical practice of careful bible reading and more mystical, experiential expressions of prayer, and argues there is a way forward which embraces the biblical aspects of both, in a way that enables us to truly experience the presence of God.

“an encounter with God that involves not only the affections of the heart but also the convictions of the mind. We are not called to choose between a Christian life based on truth and doctrine or a life filled with spiritual power and experience. They go together.” (p17)


5. Doing Prayer

Breaking this down in four categories, he starts with awe – the importance of praising God. Then to intimacy, or finding God’s grace, that is rejoicing in forgiveness through confession and repentance. Thirdly he moves to struggle, or asking for help. Very insightfully, he applied Packer’s ideas as to what we should do when we ask God for things:
       1. Think about why we ask for it (this may revise our list to start with)
       2. Acknowledge God may will otherwise with the assurance that he wants what is best for his children.
       3. Consider what we might need to do for the prayer to be answered (what does it tell us about our own motivation, sin, etc). This can place limits on what we pray for.
He finishes with the strong encouragement to daily prayer, with his suggestion actually being 2-3 times per day.

He concludes with a great bibliography, explaining why he recommend each of the books. As a result I have four more books on order, so that I can push my thinking further and also encourage me in my practice.

Did I have any hesitations? Only a few. His method of prayer rightly asserts that if you pray like this, you will not have time for long prayer lists, because you will praying in much more depth about each person or thing. I agree, but I don’t want to reduce the range of people that I pray for. I think a wide variety of people and situations broadens our minds and hearts to include those not in our immediate circle. Related to this, I didn’t find a lot of encouragement to really pray about mission, world situations, the persecuted church, etc. I think it was implied, for really praying God’s word should lead us to those far-reaching, outward-looking prayers, but I didn’t overtly see it.

What have I concluded as a result? I can now understand how some of the great people of faith of the past (and surely some of the saints of today) spent hours in prayer. With the tools I am grasping, plus the desire to apply them, I now want more time to pray.

This book is theological rich, pastorally astute and practically applicable. Keller has met his own goal and produce a definitive book on prayer for a generation. I have read and appreciated other excellent books, but for now, this is my favourite.

Olympics

Whenever the Olympics (or any similar major sporting event) take place, there is a mixture of emotions - interest in some sports and apathy in many others, amazement and horror at the money spent to stage such events, and a realisation again of how much we idolise physical success and perfection.   Sometimes I wonder what God thinks of it all.

In an attempt to marshall some of these thoughts, I have written a prayer.  Click over to The Prayer project if you are interested.

Pray for the World

Pray for the World, Operation World

I was thrilled to discover recently that Operation World have released an edited version of their marvellous resource. Operation World is a detailed analysis of all countries of the world, with population data, details of faith groups and churches and then prayer points for each country. However at times, its detail was its downfall. It was slow to interpret, heavy to carry, and hard to break down into manageable chunks. When our kids became interested in all the countries of the world, we tried to use it, but it was too much information for me to sort out and sift through to make it manageable for after dinner prayers.

Pray for the World came to the rescue! A much more manageable edited version, it now gives you basic stats on each country (population, evangelical Christians, key religious groups) and generally 4-6 prayer points. Each night we can easily find 5 prayer points to cover each each of us.  It's arranged by continents, and we are still going through the 50+ countries of Africa, but thanks to some fun internet quizzes (Jetpunk, referred to here), we all know where they are so everyone has remained interested.

I am so excited Operation World has made this resource so family friendly, it keeps us looking out from ourselves to the rest of the world, realising how different it can be, yet how God works in so many varied ways and places.

Prayer resources

So far in this prayer series, there have been three books about prayer:

A Call to Spiritual Reformation

A Praying Life

Praying the Scriptures for Your Children

There have been five posts about praying with children and in families (1, 2, 3, 4 & 5).

Finally we turn to some prayers themselves.  I'm sure there are plentiful resources of written prayers around.   Here are four ideas:

1. Old Service Books

If you grew up in a Christian home or if you have connections to older Christians or ministers, chances are they are some old Books of Common Order/ Common Prayer or Books of Services and  Prayers lying around. Get your hands on them if you can.  Of course, it is very possible you attend a church that still uses a prayer book of some type - fantastic!  Do you realise the resource sitting in front of you? 

Some are full of prayers for all times of the year, for all sorts of life situations and have many prayers praising God and Jesus.

I am very privileged to possess two old service books of my Grandad's:

• The Book of Common Order of the Church of Scotland (1940).  Inscribed as being presented to my grandfather in 1965.
• A Book of Services and Prayers (for churches of the Congregational Order), 1959

I tend to rewrite the ones I like the best into more modern language, so they feel more natural to pray.

I think our predecessors did a much better job of praying than many of our generation do, so I like to learn from them and keep using their prayers.

2. The Valley of Vision: Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions

About 200 prayers about God, Christ, his saving work and specific to situations and circumstances. Yes, they are old-fashioned and are full of thees and thous, which I have to translate as I pray to make any sense of them. Some are a bit archaic, but some are absolute gold. The ones I especially like I have rewritten in modern language and expressions which I find more natural to pray.  A great resource.

3. Prayers from the bible

The bible is a source to be harvested for prayer.  I know it sounds obvious, but it doesn't mean we automatically do it!  Psalms are often already prayers or easy to turn into prayers and many of Paul's prayers can be prayed verbatim.  But whenever you read the bible, be willing to turn whatever you have read into a prayer - whether praise of God, confession upon realisation of sin, the desire to be changed aligning with God's word.  Have a pen and notepaper handy and try it.  You will find yourself praying from the bible more and more. 

4.  The Prayer Project

I have decided to restart my prayer blog again - one prayer per week, either from the bible, one of the sources mentioned above or just perhaps from my own thoughts.  Perhaps you might also find them helpful to get you started.

Praying as a family - specific prayer

The last post was about regular general family prayers. However there are many times where we turn to prayer as a family for a specific reason. I mentioned some of these previously, for we want to be able to pray anytime. 

When children are trusted with information about people around them, we can turn specific news into opportunities for prayer. Sometimes these are praise points – someone became a Christian! Or is having a baby! Or is getting married! Other times they are prayer points – someone is sick or had an accident.

As they become more aware of the world and current events, we can also turn these into opportunities for prayer. Perhaps we will come before God about wars, natural disasters, elections, etc.

We have found that when our missionary updates come through, it is a great night to skip the general prayers and focus on that person or family in particular. We read the update together, talk about what it means, how they might feel in similar situations and then all pray for them. So if you are a missionary or ministry worker who sends out updates – let me encourage you to make them family friendly, then we can all pray for you!

That completes these 5 posts about family prayer and praying with children.   
Coming next: some prayer resources.

Praying as a family - general prayers

The ideas of praying together as a family are no different than praying with each of your children individually. The only requirement is that it is manageable for each age represented!

When we pray together as a family we do it after dinner at the table. We have a set of prayer cards which have a photo and some simple prayers. Everyone gets a card and we pray going around the table twice in order from youngest to oldest. The first time around we pray from our cards, the second time around we thank God for something. We go from youngest to oldest so the youngest ones don’t have their prayer points already used up by the time it is their turn!

The cards have both written prayers and photos so that:

• the non-reader can pray a simple prayer by recognising the person in the photo
• the early reader can read out the prayers
• the confident reader can read out the prayer or change it
• Mum & Dad usually add extra things to their prayers

We have 6 categories of cards:

• God & Jesus
• Our family - the five of us
• Extended family
• Godparents and Compassion children
• Staff at church & ES (these are the colleagues, friends and co-workers that our children know)
• Missionaries / overseas workers

They all sit in a business card display box, you can see a photo below. We just grab whichever ones are on top for that night and put them at the back of the pile again when finished.

I have realised recently that I need to update them all – they were all copied from the ones we do for our kids individually, so they are all singular (I/me). I want to change them to be plural for the family (we/us).

If you like this idea here is how we did it: I bought business cards to print out, printed them in colour, laminated them as full sheets, then cut out the individual cards. They do last longer if laminated, but they generally need to be updated every 6-12 months, so it doesn’t really matter. The holder was from an office supply store. Again, just like the written prayers for readers (link) it takes some time the first time you do it, but after that, it is quick and easy to update.

What other ideas do you have for praying together as a family?

Prayer with more competent readers

Continuing from babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers, we come to older children who are reading.

Once our children were able to read competently, we typed out prayers they could say.

These are intended to:

1. Help teach them a way to pray

I am sure you could teach children to pray by praying aloud and not writing out prayers. However, I pray from written notes myself and find it helps me pray purposefully, broadly and biblically. We have decided to write out prayers for our kids at this stage to help them set good early habits of broad ranging prayers. They include praise points, confessions and prayer requests.

2. Give confidence to pray

By having written prayers and not having to think up things on the spot, they are more confident to pray. However, they do not have to stick to the prayer points, in fact we encourage them to go ‘off script’ as we often have more up to date information about the people from week to week.

3. Give familiarity with bible passages and how to use them in prayer

Where possible, we write prayers from bible passages so they can learn how to do so themselves.

Our format is to provide prayers for each day of the week, which include 3-4 categories.

• a praise point about God, Jesus or the Spirit and their character
• prayer and praise points about an immediate family member (us 5 and both grandparents)
• prayer and praise points about godparents and their family / extended family
• prayer and praise about school, a ministry / missionary, or church.

We have kept photos in these ones too – it looks good and is fun to organise and update.

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A sample is below:

GOD

• God – you love us even when we don’t deserve your love. Thank you for loving me all of the time.
• God, you are compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness. (Psa 86:15)

DADDY

• Thank you for Daddy, that he loves me and cares for me.
• Thank you for fun times we have together – playing soccer, chess and other games.
• I am sorry for times when I am disobedient. Help me to listen to Daddy.
• Thank you God for Daddy’s work and that he can tell people about Jesus every day.
• Please let the word of Christ live in Daddy and that he will teach others with wisdom. (Col 3:16)
• Please help him to always speak the truth of Jesus and to be loving to others.

SCHOOL

• Dear God, thank you for my teachers. Thank you that they teach me about new things and how the world works.
• I am sorry if I am disobedient or I lie in class.
• Please help me to do my work properly.
• Please help me to be obedient in class, to listen and to be helpful.

• Thank you for my school friends –___________________.
• I am sorry for the times when I am mean to my school friends.
• Please help me to be a kind friend and a sharing friend.
• Please help me to look out for others who don’t have friends and to be nice to them.
• Please God, let my friends know that Jesus loves them, and he wants to be friends with them.

Yes, this is a bit of work to organise the first time - but it has been fantastic for our older two both in being able to pray with us or to start praying on their own.  They tell me when they want to update it with new prayer points and photos and then we do it together on the computer.   

I see no reason why this format cannot last for years to come.  It is essentially what I do myself but in a more simplified format.   

What has worked for this age in your family?

Prayer with babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers

Keeping in mind the principles from the last post – that we want to pray with our children and model that it’s normal – it makes sense that we want to model prayer from the earliest stage. I remember walking with our babies to their cots at night, praying ‘with’ them at the end of day – often they were simple “thank you for my day and please help me sleep well tonight” prayers, sometimes there was a bit more.

We started to get into the habit of saying grace as soon as they were starting solids (I never thought of saying grace before a feed – perhaps I should have!)

With toddlers, we often prayed for emergency vehicles with their sirens on: “Please God thank you for the ambulance drivers, help them to drive safely, get to the people in need, please help the doctors at the hospital to be able to help them get better and please help them all to learn about Jesus.”

We always found the end of the day to be a good time for prayer. It was also bible time and both naturally fit together. It is calm time and a lovely way to finish the day together.

Once our children could recognise people in photos (maybe from 6-12 months), we had a ‘prayer diary’. It was a simple A4 sheet with photos.

It was set up for the days of the week, with three categories for each day: family, extended family/godparents, ministry/other.

This has worked for years. In fact, until they could read independently, this has been the way we prayed with our children. As they got older, they loved helping organise it – choose who was on which day and it helped with learning to recognise everyone’s names in print as they were written underneath their photo.

Our youngest, age 5, still uses this as she is not ready to progress to written prayers yet.

I have included a table of it, so you can see an example.  It is a very bland example - usually it is a colourful photo display with everyone's real names.  However, since I felt I could not put up all these people's photos & names without permission, I have just given you an edited version.

DAY	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Family	Daddy	Mummy	Child 1	Child 2	Child 3	Grandparents	Grandparents
Family / Friends	Aunty, Uncle & family	Aunty & Uncle & family	Child 1's godparents	Child 2’s godparents	Child 3'swgodparents	Other family	Teachers and school friends
Ministry/ Other	Daddy’s work.	Missionary	Missionary	Missionary	Missionary	Compassion children	Church &  Friends  at church.

This is the one of the ways we have found that works well for us with little ones.

Next time - prayer with more confident readers.