Teaching Children to Pray (Several Phases)

Teaching children to pray and to make prayer apart of their lives cannot be started too early! A daily devotional can be a difficult task for an adult to establish, but much easier for children. I have broken down this topic into several phases, each containing an object for the lesson.

Phase I - Childlike Faith

This first phase can be taught to children as soon as they are able to lose items and feel the distress associated with losing them.

Object: The object for this phase is actually a teachable moment when your child loses something that should be recovered.

When the child comes to you about the lost item, immediately respond by telling them to ask God to show them where the item is. Explain that God knows everything, sees everything, and care about them enough to care about even this lost item.

Note: If you are not quite sure God cares about lost items, try it yourself, first. When He answers miraculously, you will have your proof!

After they pray, tell them to pause and listen for a few moments (listen with them) or spend some quiet time listening to where God says to look. (This may take practice - after all, the key to listening to God is practice.)

If an answer doesn't come right away, tell them to go about their business, but keep sensitive to strange/silly ideas of where to look or go or things to do. Explain that these are often God prompting us to go down a path to find the lost item(s).

Lesson: When the item is found, take a moment to discuss the entire situation and make sure they understand how God led them to the lost item(s). This re-cap will teach them which inner voice is their own and which is God's voice. This listening and obeying is a habit that they will find crucial as they begin to grow up. Your proactive example will teach them to direct their requests to God, first. It will also teach them to rely on God's direction and discern what God's voice is saying to them.

Final Note: Depending on the maturity of your child, you may have to discuss what God's voice sounds like, what God will and won't tell us to do (such as to disobey our parents, etc.).