You might remember that we learnt a few weeks ago about how prayer is a way of talking to God and hearing from Him. We can talk to God just like we can talk to our family and to our friends, we don’t need big or long words but we just need to say whatever is on our hearts!

We are also going to think about how to pray for different things and different people this week, and how we can thank God and ask Him for the things that we need ourselves but also things for others too! Isn’t that brilliant?

Let’s start with some worship! Feel free to sing and dance or just watch and listen, Jesus doesn’t mind HOW we worship, he just loves it when we spend time with Him and sing His praises!

Alive – Hillsong Young & Free

You are Good – Bethel Kids

The Lord’s Prayer – Saddleback Kids

King of My Heart – Discoveryland Worship

Story time

David’s Prayers– Saddleback Kids

Some important points to remember from the story…

• David loved God with ALL of his heart and he prayed to him all the time! God was his good friend!
• David thanked God for all that he had done for him in his life! David thanked God for answering his prayers, for guiding him and helping him make decisions, for always being with him and comforting him, for always loving him! David talked to God his WHOLE life!
• God wants US to be like David, he wants us to be his friend and to talk to him our WHOLE lives! He wants to listen to us because he LOVES us and he wants us to tell him EVERYTHING and not only that, he wants us to ask him for whatever we need AND whatever the people around us need too!

Some things to talk to your family about…

• David thanked God a lot, he praised God in his prayers. That is one way that we can pray, do you know of any other ways that we can pray? Why don’t you have a think as a family?
• What sort of things can you talk to God about? What can you say to him or ask him for?
• Where are some of the places that you can talk to God?
• When we pray we get to talk to God but we also get to listen to him too! Have you ever tried listening to God? Can you remember anything that he has said to you?
• Why don’t you try and talk to God and listen to him today? What are some of the things that you could talk to God about this week?

Memory Verse

God is a very good listener! We can talk to him about anything at anytime and in any place! God reminds us in the bible that when we come and pray to him, he will listen! Isn’t that amazing? He will help us when we are happy, sad, sick or in trouble. Instead of one verse today, we are going to pray a prayer together that Jesus told his friends about to help them pray! We can pray this prayer anytime as well as telling God about anything else on our hearts or anything that we’d like to ask him for!

Shall we have a go at praying this prayer together now? Why don’t you pray it together as a family? The words are below OR you can pray along with this video.

Hello Daddy!

We want to know you. And be close to you. Please show us how. Make everything in the world right again. And in our hearts, too. Do what is best – just like you do in heaven, and please do it down here, too. Please give us everything we need today. Forgive us for doing wrong, for hurting you. Forgive us just as we forgive others when they hurt us. Rescue us! We need you! We don’t want to keep running away and hiding from you. Keep us safe from our enemies.

You’re strong, God. You can do whatever you want. You are in charge. Now, and forever and for always! We think you’re great!

 Amen!

Prayer time

As we head into our week of prayer, why not try out some of the prayer activities below as a family throughout the week?

Fill in the Blank Prayer: 

As a family, take it in turns going from person to person (or going back and forth) “God is great, God is good, thank you God for ______________.”

You could make it into a game and see how long you can keep it going!

Prayer through Movement:

(Start with 3 deep breaths)

God, you are above (reach toward the sky)

God you are below (touch your toes)

God you are inside (hands to heart)

God you are all around (big arm circles)        

I worship you (reach toward the sky)

and give my life to you (touch your toes)

And I love you (hands to heart)

with ALL that I am! (big arm circles)

Prayer Walk: Go for a walk together as a family in search of the things you’re thankful to God for. Say them out loud together and point them out to each other, e.g. sunshine, trees, bird songs, smiles from others, pretty flowers etc. You could also use this opportunity to collect the twigs/branches if you choose to do the prayer tree below!

Digital Adventure Prayer Map: Thy Kingdom Come have put together some family resources to be used during the week of prayer, including a digital prayer map that features daily games and videos which are all delivered through augmented reality! You can download this here!

Craft time

Prayer tree!

Today we are going to make a prayer tree! Hopefully this will help us to remember that we can talk to God anytime that we want and about all sorts of different things! In fact, why don’t we try and pray for something different every day this week? We could make a leaf every day to hang on our tree and each leaf can be a prayer! You can make the tree however you like (there are some examples below) but you might want to go outside and find some twigs or branches that you could tie together and hang your leaf prayers off or tie your leaf prayers to! Or, if it’s easier, you could draw a big tree on a piece of paper or card and draw on some branches! You could write one prayer every day on each branch (or more if you like!)

Prayer suggestions!  

Remember, we can talk to God about ANYTHING at all, WHENEVER we like but here are some suggestions of one thing every day that you could pray for this week! Once you’ve prayed for it, why not hang it on your prayer tree by making it into a leaf? At the end of this week, you could keep the prayer tree in your house and you and your family could keep adding to it whenever you’d like!

Monday: Thank you! Why don’t you say thank you to God today for something? Or tell him something that you love about him?

Tuesday: Please help! Why don’t you ask God for one thing that you need his help with this week?

Wednesday: Pray for someone! Is there someone you could pray for today? Maybe a family member or a friend? You might want to wait a moment and see if God reminds you of anyone or there may be someone who you know is a bit sad/lonely/sick at the moment.

Thursday: Pray for the world! Is there something in the world that you could pray for today? Maybe those suffering from the coronavirus, those who are lonely, those who are homeless?

Friday: Pray for another friend of Jesus! Is there someone that you can think of that doesn’t know Jesus and is not his friend yet? Why don’t you pray that they would get to know him?

Saturday: Sorry! Is there anything that you’d like to say sorry to God for (maybe not sharing with your siblings, not being kind to others, not listening to your parents etc) remember, he loves us no matter what and he is really happy when we come to him and say sorry if we have made a mistake or if we’ve forgotten to be kind.

Sunday: Listen! God is a great listener! Why don’t you sit and listen and see if God has something to say to you today? He might remind you of something or someone to pray for or he might just tell you something, like he loves you!