I can still remember the feeling of kneeling at the side of my mother's bed after our family devotions, waiting for my turn to offer up a muffled prayer for family members and friends. It's a sweet memory, even after all these years. Those days are long gone, but they continue to set a precedence in my life. I know that prayer is important and I am always on the look out for ways to incorporate new ideas, methods, and topics into my daily prayer times. I hope for this kind of lasting impact on the kids who come through the kids prayer group I'm mentoring.

In working with the Shekinah Kids prayer group for the past three years, I've come to discover that the kids I'm training need to engage in family and personal prayer time at home. What I'm finding is that 4 out of 5 kids living in Christian homes do not have daily devotions nor do they have family times of prayer. The 20% that do have devotions/prayer...well, it shows. (The next time you are in a group of children, you may want to find out what the statistics are.)

As a kids prayer group leader, there are certain things I can do to help parents. I truly believe that parents would have devotion/prayer time together if they knew what to do and could carve out time to do it. In order for this to happen, whatever path they take must be flexible, somewhat forgiving, and even fun (for everyone). The other thing parents need is support...they need me as backup - including ideas to help them at home.

I've found a few books that are really helpful for motivating families to pray and even play together for a daily devotion time (When Families Pray, The Praying Family). The material in this month's articles (Jan 2006 - "Kids Summit Report") may also prove helpful. If parents will ask their kids what they're learning, then let their kids demonstrate, it may just give the right amount of credibility to help start the process. Kids are able to minister through prayer at church and in class, but are they allowed to minister at home? I think this is part of the challenge.

I know, it's hard. Johnny is always leaving his things all over the house and is quite messy, which triggers his parents to react. Sally is always running late and despises helping in the kitchen, in fact, she doesn't like housework at all, which frustrates her entire family. After struggling to correct all the weak areas in the lives of children, how are parents to see them with respect in spiritual matters? Forgiveness, grace and love. Could it be that the reason parents are to train their children is because of the whole spiritual experience...not for purely social reasons.

Probably one of the best examples of this I can think of comes from the Hunt family. Dad, mom, three boys and a girl are involved in devotions and prayer. Their oldest son is in high school, their second oldest (a girl) is in middle school, and their two younger sons are in early, mid elementary. Every now and then I get an update on how things are going at home. During one particular devotion time, their middle son preached a sermon he'd written out about the gospel. They've learned to share respectfully with each other. One night, during dinner their daughter noticed her mom's high stress level and offered to pray a special prayer for her that turned into a blessed nightly routine. They're a busy family (oldest is in football, three are in an extra-curricular kids ministry now, and much more); but they have been working toward consistency and it's paying off already.