At the 7 Essentials of Kids Prayer Training Seminar last November we had a panel discussion. This was a time to present questions about Kids Prayer to a group of people who have experience incorporating kids prayer into their church or ministry. The following are some of the questions that were asked.

How do you encourage shy, quiet kids to pray?
Train the kids in small groups. Use repeat-after-me prayers. You could also pull the child aside and ask them to pray for you. The more opportunities they have to pray in a safe environment will help them to build confidence in their prayers.

We've had a lot of info, but I need to know what order to do things. A step by step method. How do we begin?
Kids like to feel important so the best thing to do is let them know that they have two jobs. The first job is worship and the second is praying for the Kindgom. These two concepts will create a great foundation that you can build on. The 7 Essentials of Kids Prayer book has a great step by step method to use.

When do you hold your prayer class, during a service or on an off night? How often do you hold your class?
We hold our prayer class for Kindergarten through Sixth grade during our family prayer night. During our midweek service we have another prayer leadership class for Fourth through Sixth grade. Both of these classes meet weekly.

If you were birthing a kid's prayer ministry, what would you do or how would you begin? (ages 5-10) We have Pastor's blessing - we just don't know where to start! Two questions to ask are:
1. What time will work best for your church's schedule?
2. When is there a room available?

It is also important to make sure that you can be consistent as a leader with the time that is chosen.

I need a plan of action. Where do I start? I have a weekly 30 to 45 minute available.
The consensus of the panel was to use the book An Hour of Kids Prayer. WNOP put this book together for the 2006 7 Essentials Seminar as a supplement to the 7 Essentials of Kids Prayer book. It occurred to us that we have had kids prayer training at our church for Kindergarten to 6^th grade for four years. We have tons of ideas let’s just put them in a book. So that’s what this book is, a compellation of ideas that we have done with our kids prayer group and that we have seen work. In the back is an index that has some of things that we did and it saves you some work. We have a Soul Tree shoe that they write the names on. We have flags that we have already written prayer requests for missionaries. There are worksheets to help you plan your time together. It is very hands on and has simple steps to follow. You can adapt the ideas in this book to fit the time you have available. You could take this book back to your church and start a powerful kids ministry with 30 minutes and two kids if that’s all you got.  

Explain Saturday School of Prayer.
Saturday School of Prayer is a time when you can invite the churches in your community together for prayer. It can be led by the kids in your group or by the leaders. It is a time to come together and pray for needs in the world, country and community. Many churches do not have a kids prayer group so the day will be part instruction, part prayer. For more ideas check out this page.

As a parent how long should I spend each morning and night praying with my child?Every child and every age group is different. The emphasis shouldn’t be about how much time you spend but the fact that you do spend time and you are consistent with it.

Could you please touch on what your response is to the kids when God doesn't seem to answer their prayer or when things don't turn out ok when they pray.
It’s tough, how do you explain it just wasn’t God’s will. Our kids group has been faced with some serious prayer requests in the last year, year and a half where someone has cancer or needs an organ transplant. How we have explained this to our group is, we need to pray for God’s will and sometimes its not what we want but it’s ultimately the best thing for the person involved. So what we want and what we believe is God can heal this person, or He can make sure they don’t get sent somewhere dangerous, or He make sure a family won’t lose their house or their car or something like that, God can take care of that but what we need to pray is for God’s will because sometimes what we think is best is not really what’s best for them. By teaching them to pray that way and giving them that understanding a head of time it helps curb the times when prayers don’t get answered because unfortunately not every prayer gets answered but He does hold each prayer up in Heaven. Every prayer counts but ultimately whatever God feels is best for the person is what is going to happen. We have to teach them to trust God to do what He feels is best, in His time and His way. His ways are above our ways, we’re not always going to understand.