Why Pray?
Before you take the next step of prayer with your family, take a moment to assess your family’s prayer life. Have each person in your family rate each of the following three statements on a scale from 0 to 5 (0 is the lowest degree, or interest; 5 is the highest degree, or interest).
- Our family supports each other in prayer.
- I am satisfied with how and when our family prays together.
- I am open to learning new ways to pray with my children.
One of the things I quickly discovered as a youth and family ministry pastor was not to assume anything regarding prayer life in the home. Some families that I would not have expected to have a great prayer life at home did pray together, while others that I assumed were strong pray-ers never engaged in prayer at home. Even in the families that did pray together, I found there was great diversity in how prayer was handled in each home. Consider the following stories of two different families. Can you see your family in either of them?
The phone rang in my office at the church. It was Alan, a member of the congregation. We greeted each other at church, but he rarely called, so I presumed something was wrong.
He searched for the right words. “I’m having troubles with my 15-year-old, Andrea.”
“What do you mean by troubles?” I asked.
“We’re not communicating well, and it seems like we’re on opposite ends of every situation.”
Realizing that he needed more than a quick answer, I went to visit him. Alan, his wife and two children lived in a beautiful home. By the world’s standards they had everything together. Alan was involved in committees at the church, and his wife helped out with Sunday School. His daughter, Andrea, was actively involved in the youth program, and she helped teach Sunday School.
I spent the first 30 minutes in his home listening to story after story of how disrespectful Andrea had become.
“She doesn’t listen to me anymore,” he exclaimed. “And when I establish a rule or guideline, she pushes it to the limit and further, which forces me to do something about it. I’m also concerned about the friends she’s hanging out with, and I’m wondering if I need to limit how much time she spends with them.”
As he continued sharing his concerns, I remember thinking, What am I going to say? I don’t have a teenager and have never had to face this myself.
Finally, Alan asked, “What am I supposed to do?”
Not wanting to let on that I was feeling ill-equipped to handle the situation, I turned to God for help. I sat back in the chair and then asked, “Have you prayed with your daughter about this?”
This didn’t seem like a ludicrous question to me, because I had seen Alan lead prayer numerous times at committee meetings, and his daughter led prayer in Sunday School every Sunday. Yet, when I asked the question, the look in his eyes told me all I needed to know. Over the first 15 years of his daughter’s life, Alan was actively involved in taking her to daycare, soccer practice, piano lessons and even church, but he had not once prayed with his daughter. The idea of praying with his daughter for the first time seemed utterly beyond the scope of reason to him.
The situation in Alan’s family is reality in many families today. Most families are two or three generations removed from the last generation that remembers what it was like to have prayer, Bible reading and devotions as an integral part of life at home. The reason people are not praying at home is not because they don’t want to. The reason is because they don’t know how to do it. As a result of seeing this need and desire in so many parents to spiritually nurture their children at home, our church realized we had to become more intentional in equipping people to live out their faith at home. As a part of that emphasis, we began offering “Take It Home” training events for parents and their young children on the topic of prayer.1
Here’s another home situation that might be like yours. I’ll never forget when Dan and Wendy came to the Take It Home event on prayer. I had never seen Dan before, but I could see he was not very excited to be there. Dan’s only experience with Christianity was an occasional visit to a Sunday or Saturday evening mass with his family. He had given up going to church altogether for the past eight years. Wendy, after the birth of their first child, realized she needed God and wanted to raise her children in church. She became very involved at our church.
At the time of the prayer event, Dan and Wendy had a five-year-old son and three-year-old daughter. Those kids were their pride and joy. Dan and Wendy made a good living, had a nice house and provided a fairly stable home environment for their children. Yet the more involved Wendy became in her faith the more she yearned to have Dan be a part of their spiritual life. Every time she suggested Dan attend church he would politely, but definitely, reject the offer.
As a part of our Sunday School program, parents are asked to come one Sunday a year with their children for a Take It Home event to learn a faith skill they can incorporate into their home life. As that Sunday approached, Wendy asked Dan if he would attend the Take It Home event on prayer with her and their son, Nate. When Dan asked what it was, Wendy told him she wasn’t sure but knew it was to help them as parents. “They are asking all of the parents of five-year-olds to come with their kids.”
“Sounds like a trick just to get us to church,” Dan replied. “You go. Church is a thing for you and the kids anyway.”
Wendy made one more attempt. “Our anniversary is coming up, and I know you haven’t gotten me anything yet. Do you know the gift I would like the most this year?”
“What’s that?” Dan replied.
“I would like you to go to this Take It Home event with me. That’s all I want this year––one hour of your time to go with me and Nate to this event at church.”
Dan paused. “Okay, if it’s that important to you, I’ll go.”
Wendy was thrilled.
During the event, I watched Dan and Wendy join their son Nate as they learned how to do mealtime prayers, bedtime prayers and anytime prayers together. It was fun to watch them sing the mealtime prayer, which is sung to the “Superman” tune. It ended up being Nate’s favorite. At the end of the event, Dan and Wendy received a handout with 14 ways to pray with their kids at home. They left with smiles on their faces. Little did I know then what God would do in their lives as a result of this one event.
Fast-forward four years and imagine the same Take It Home event for parents and five-year-olds. Dan and Wendy are also there. Why? So that Dan could share their testimony.
Dan, with his wife and son at his side, gets up and says, “My name is Dan, and I would like to tell you my story. I attended this event on prayer four years ago with my wife and son. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t want to be here. In fact, the reason I came was because my wife said it was the only thing she wanted as an anniversary present. I figured coming to this was a lot less expensive than a night out on the town!
“Growing up, I didn’t have much experience praying. I felt uneasy about praying with my kids. But during this event, I learned so many fun and easy ways to pray, and I found myself getting into it. It’s been four years, and a favorite part of my day is when I pray with my nine-year-old in his bedroom before he goes to bed. He won’t even go to bed until we pray, and I’m glad. Give prayer a chance and you may discover it’s one of the best things that could ever happen in your family.”
Dan and Wendy are now members of our church. They have taken to heart and put into practice all the faith skills offered through the Take It Home events. As a family, they worship, pray and have family devotions together. They have just begun doing a monthly service project together as a family. Dan recently said to me, “I didn’t know Christianity could be so much fun and helpful all at the same time.”
Are you still asking the question, Why pray? You can choose not to pray in your home and then when trouble hits, like it did for Alan and his daughter, you won’t have it as a resource to draw upon to help you through. Or you can make prayer a part of your family life today, which will help you weather the storms by keeping lines of communication open between your family members and God. Wherever you are in your prayer experience in your home, you can benefit from learning to keep prayer fresh and alive. God wants you and your family to enjoy long, everlasting life. Let’s start praying.
Note
1 Visit www.gospellight.com for the Take It Home resource that equips churches to offer Take It Home events for parents and children.
