January 3, 2021

Parents, just follow the instructions and have a great time with your kids worshipping God and learning from His Word together!

Lesson: Happy New Year!

First watch this lesson video:

If you and your children haven’t watched the complete Build-a-Prayer Workshop series, just go to the Church at Home page and scroll down to the “Build-a-Prayer Workshop” lessons that started on April 19, 2020. There are 6 video lessons.

Week of Prayer: January 3rd – 9th

Join our church family each night this week for prayer on zoom at 7:30! Check the parent email on Monday or click HERE for more information.

After the video…

Talk about the lesson

1. Ask your kids if they remember what each of the P-R-A-Y building blocks stand for.

2. Take turns talking about how you would each like to grow in the area of prayer this new year. For example:

- – Do they need to gain the discipline to pray daily?
- – Are they finding it difficult to find a quiet time to pray?
- – Do they need to focus more on praising God or yielding to Him or one of the other building blocks of prayer?

Listen to each other and offer encouragement and ideas. Be sure to remind your family that prayer isn’t a chore we must perform to earn God’s love. God loves us no matter what. Prayer is a privilege and a joy — we get to speak with the Creator of the universe! He wants us to talk with Him!

3. Talk together about how you can make family prayer time a priority. This may involve discussing the weekly schedule and setting a time that works for everyone. (See “Making time” below.)

Start the year off praying

Making prayer a daily part of personal, family, and church life can be a challenge. The new year can be a good time to re-set our priorities. Here are some ideas to help develop lasting habits that you can start this week.

1. Making time… The first challenge is finding a regular time to pray – especially time for family prayer. So take a look at your family’s weekly schedule and consider when to make time for prayer. Maybe before or after a meal would work best. Perhaps making prayer part of bedtime routines will be ideal. Sit down and discuss it as a family and then put it on the calendar.

2. How to pray… If you’ve never had family prayer time or you’re looking for ideas on how to pray together, try these:

– Pray the Lord’s Prayer together every day. (See below for the version we used in the video.)

– Use the Lord’s Prayer as a guide to build your own prayer. After each line of the Lord’s Prayer, pause for family members to voice their own words to God.

– Use the “P-R-A-Y” blocks and take turns saying sentence prayers of PRAISE, REPENTANCE, ASKING and YIELDING.

– Use the 5-finger prayer.

– For younger children, print a few copies of this prayer prompt and show them how it can help them express their thoughts to God.

– Begin each time of prayer with someone reading verses from one of these psalms as a way of starting your prayer with PRAISE!
- – Psalm 34:1-4
- – Psalm 89:1-2
- – Psalm 90: 1-2
- – Psalm 91:1-2
- – Psalm 100:1-5
- – Psalm 117:1-2
- – Psalm 145:1-9

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory now and forever. Amen.

Sing Together

Here are two songs to take with you into this week of prayer.

– The first is a reminder of how God wants us to pray instead of worrying. The words are straight from Philippians 4:6-7.
– The second is a beautiful song of praise to God. Express your thanks and love to Him through this song.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE LESSONS!