7 Ways to Model Prayer as a Verb: Teaching Kids How to Pray

Books on the internet and magazines offer insight into prayers we can pray for our children, our spouses, our friends and, yes, even our pets. There’s nothing wrong with someone’s published words inspiring us to form our own thoughts and ways to express ourselves to the Lord. But if kids only hear us read printed phrases for our communication with our heavenly Father, how will they learn that He desires to hear their words from their hearts?

If you were to look up prayer in the dictionary, you would see it listed as a noun. But if we model prayer as a constant conversation between us and God, could we not teach our kids to understand it as a verb?

Model Prayer as a Verb to Teach Kids How to Pray

1. Teach kids to share their own thoughts with God (Matthew 6:7). Sometimes we teach very young children a short poetic prayer, and that may get them off to a good start. But a child needs to grow beyond those memorized words. We get excited the first time a child says, “Please juice.”

But if that’s all that child is saying to us when he’s six years old. Well, we’d better rethink our vocabulary training. When your children talk to you, they don’t repeat the same things over and over, so why do we teach them to do that with the Lord?

2. Help kids learn that prayer is NOT a good luck charm? Sometimes we pray as if God is a magician who will magically give us things if we ask “just right.” We don’t see Him as a loving, sovereign God Who loves us with a love we can’t begin to comprehend. God does not play games with us.

3. Help kids learn God should be thanked even in difficult situations. Recently I read a book entitled The Insanity of God, a story of a missionary who traveled to countries where believers are consistently and cruelly persecuted. His goal was to discover if and how these believers grow in their faith, since everyone they meet is antagonistic to that faith.

The author was in such seriously dangerous territory that he could not even put his name on the book. Yet he discovered it is often the most persecuted people who have the deepest faith. They view their relationship with Christ as the most valued aspect of life, rather than striving after superficial materialism. Sometimes their prayers are ones of thanksgiving for the horrific persecution they bear daily. They are thankful they have the privilege of suffering for their heavenly Father.

4. Teach kids to pray about more than material possessions. Yes, we need to teach our children to pray about all things. But they need to learn to pray about more than material possessions. When Paul wrote to the Christians in Colossae, he told them exactly what he said while praying for them: And so, from the day we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:9-10).

5. Encourage children to pray for wisdom, for discernment in making good choices, for a desire to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord? Encouarge them to pray for a desire to know God’s Word? Many adults who reject the faith of their parents do so because they think, “God doesn’t listen to me. He doesn’t answer my prayers. I prayed for this to happen and it didn’t, so God doesn’t care. So He doesn’t exist; or if He does, He’s forgotten me.” These adults don’t understand that prayer isn’t a Christmas list for Santa Claus, but what we do all day every day.

Prayer is our communication with our Heavenly Father, being assured that He is with us and helping us (by giving us courage, strength and peace) through the tangles of this earthly life.

6. Teach kids to ask the Lord that His will to be done. Christ Himself prayed for that while on the Mount of Olives. Nevertheless, not My will, but Yours, be done. (Luke 22:24). Some people resent being told to pray for God’s will. But why? Why would we not want to align ourselves with the will of an omniscient God? What better place is there to be? Why do we fight against that so much? (Well, actually we fight because we usually prefer our own will, not God’s will.)

7. Teach kids to pray without ceasing (I Thessalonians 5:17). “Without ceasing” does not mean walking around with our heads bowed, but it does mean we should always be in an attitude of prayer. We should be aware that God is listening to us all the time.

The Psalmist tells us in Psalm 139:4: Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. God knows every word we think and say, not just the words we speak during formal prayer. We can teach kids to pray when someone is teasing them at school, when they’re thankful for a good day, when they have a difficult task in front of them, when they’re worried about Uncle Bob being in the hospital.

Model Prayer as Constant Conversation With God

Prayer is not a thing that shows up at 10:15 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Prayer is our very life. Prayer is all-day, everyday communication with our Heavenly Father that should be so much a part of us that everything we do and say is done through the lens of our relationship with the Lord.

For more resources on prayer and ways to disciple kids through your actions, follow the links below.

Prioritizing Prayer: The Practice of Praying for Others

Practical Prayer Ideas for Your Children’s Ministry

Become a Prayer Partner

This blog, written by Linda Weddle, was originally published in 2014. It has been updated by the Awana Editorial Team.