How to Pray

The focus of this family time is to use five easy steps to teach our family the Lord’s Prayer. How we are to pray to God, praising him, thanking him, and asking that his will be done.

Learn the Memory Verse together and say it throughout the week to help your family remember and apply what they have learned.

MEMORY VERSE:  

“Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"

John 1:29

STEP 1. GATHER!

Use this exercise to begin Family Worship Night and discuss prayer with each other..

1. Say: “God wants us to talk to him about anything and everything. When we talk to God we can say ‘thank you.’ We can thank God for who he is and for the things he has given us. Let’s do that now. Think of something you want to thank God for. Go around the circle and when it is your turn, jump up, say ‘Thank you, God, for . . . ,’ name the thing you want to thank God for, and then sit down. Ready?” 
2. Repeat this exercise, but this time say: “When we pray to God we say ‘thank you’; we can also say ‘sorry.’ We can say ‘sorry’ to God when we do things we should not do, or when we don’t do something that we should have done. We can say ‘Sorry, God, for being angry’ or ‘Sorry, God, for not obeying’ or ‘Sorry, God, for lying.’ Think of something you want to say sorry to God for. Everyone starts with the words ‘Sorry, God, for . . .’ Ready?” 
3. Repeat this exercise one last time, but this time say: “When we pray to God we say ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry.’ We can also ask God, ‘Please help me’ and ‘Please help other people.’ We can ask: ‘Please, God, help me obey,’ or ‘Please, God, help people who are sick,’ or ‘Please, God, help people in Afganistan”

Say: “We can talk to God and pray for all those things. We can pray about anything and everything.

STEP 2. WORSHIP!

Preschool:

Elementary:

• Sing and have fun while worshiping then pray. Take a moment here to thank God for your family and your time together!! 

STEP 3. BIBLE!

Read Pages 222-227 in the Jesus Storybook Bible

Watch:

STEP 4. DISCUSSION! 

Use these questions and points to have a conversation with your children about the Bible story. 

Our Father in heaven… Who are we praying to? We pray “our Father in heaven” because God is ruling over everything and he is powerful and he is King.

hallowed be your name… Does this mean that we should treat God and God’s name as a little bit important or very important?

your kingdom come… Who is the King? Say it all together. Correct, Jesus. We are praying here that people will treat Jesus as King, that his kingdom will grow, and that one day the whole world will be under his rule.

your will be done on earth as it is in heaven… Whose will do we usually want to do, ours or God’s?

Give us today our daily bread… Raise your hand if you think this means we are asking God for food and nothing else. Raise your hand if you think this means we are asking God for things we need. Who knows what we need better, us or God?

And forgive us our sin…When we say we are sorry for our sins, does God forgive us? Yes or no? 

as we also forgive everyone who sins against us…When anyone hurts us or wrongs us, must we forgive them? Yes or no? Say it together. 

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…What is temptation? Correct, it is when we want to do something wrong. Here we are asking God to keep us safe from anything that we might do wrong, and to keep us safe from evil. 

Say: “We pray to God, praising him and thanking him and asking that his will be done. We also ask God for what we need and tell him we are sorry for our sins.”

STEP 5. Pray!

• Pray the Lord’s Prayer aloud together.