With eyes wide openMartyn Payne |
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'Now children, open your eyes...
free your hands... don't go quiet... and let's pray'. This isn't quite the traditional formula to
introduce a time of prayer with children, but there's more than one way to talk
with our heavenly Father, especially when we want to do that talking together
and perhaps even more especially when we want to pray as a church community for
our local community. As part of the regular focuses for Hope 2008, we come this month to Prayer
Hope, knowing that God calls us to root all our mission and service in the
power of prayer. Paul urges us, 'to pray for everyone... Pray for kings and
others in power so that we may live quiet and peaceful lives as we worship and
honour God' (1 Timothy 2: 1(a) and 2, CEV). And of course Jeremiah puts it
famously in his advice to those who were living in 'secular' exile in Babylon,
when he writes: 'Pray for the peace of Babylonia and work hard to make it
prosperous' (Jeremiah 29:7, CEV). Yes, he is telling them to pray for the very
nation who held them captive and who destroyed their temple and who killed so
many of their brothers and sisters! Prayer isn't just about our own needs and
concerns, nor just simply for the plans and programmes of the church; prayer is
part of our mission to the people in our neighbourhoods, towns and cities,
wherever they are and whether there for us or against us, or simply just don't
care! So the call to prayer for our community is clear enough, but how can we
get our children involved? Children don't usually have a problem with prayer. Talking to God is for
most of those we work with nothing unusual. It's part of their innate
spirituality. But like all other aspects of this God-given and
Jesus-recommended specialness of the child, it needs to be celebrated and
nurtured. If we teach children that prayer is only about saying thank you for
what they receive and asking for things they need in their own lives or the
lives of their family and friends, we are selling them short on the power and
the purpose of prayer. When the psalmist celebrates the power of children's
prayers, he describes it as the sort of prayer that can challenge the darkness
and strike the enemy dumb (see Psalm 8:2, where he writes: 'With praises from
children and from tiny infants, you have built a fortress. It makes your
enemies silent, and all who turn against you are left speechless' (CEV). Wow!
What a largely untapped and unrecognized prayer resource our children's voices
are! It is their praises and prayers that we need to make the difference in the life of the communities around where we live.
Just hold on to that thought for a moment and be challenged... as I am! In response to this sort of insight, I can remember a while back going
on a prayer walk around the local streets with the children's group from the
church where I worshipped at the time. We stopped to pray for different places
and the activities that went on there and it certainly meant 'eyes open' and
was far more active than most of the praying that we had done until then. Maybe
you have tried this with your church group and also have a story to tell.
However, I am a little nervous of recommending this approach today as a way to
engage children in prayer for their community. Walking the streets rather than
being in church during your children's meeting time quite rightly involves a
lot of planning, plenty of helpers and of course permission from parents and
carers. In many ways it is fraught with practical challenges and there are
issues of safety. So how about a different approach, and indeed something that
our team itself tried out recently? You will need to devote a good part of your regular meeting time to the
following prayer activity; indeed, it could well take up the whole of the
session. Start by reminding the children that prayer is not just about themselves
and those close to them. God wants us to pray about everything and everyone,
including those who live around us in our neighbourhood. God uses our prayers
to bring in the kingdom of God and open doors for the good news of Jesus. You
might like to link this to Jesus' instructions to his followers in Matthew 10,
where he tells them to walk around the local communities and pray a blessing on
each house they enter (see verse 12). One way to imitate this safely is to build up a simple map of the
community right there in your meeting space. Use large pieces of green, grey or
blue felt, depending on whether your locality is mainly rural or urban or near
the sea. Have available a range of other items, from which the children can
select, to build up a 'prayer map' of the community. Include children's
building blocks, toy cars, farm animals, shiny stones or buttons as symbols for
shops, parks, your church and other key buildings, play people, coloured ribbon
and perhaps even pictures or photos taken of places in your area. With an older
group, an aerial map (like those available from Google) might be a helpful
guide, but it is best to let the children decide on what goes where, so the
community map is as they see it
rather than try to make it an accurate diorama. Most children see their area in
terms of journeys - to and from church, school or their friends' houses, and so
the sense of distance will be relative and not all neat and proportional! This is quite definitely an 'eyes open' and 'hands not together' sort of prayer for all the people and activities
going on right on your doorstep. There will be plenty to talk about as you work on your 'prayer map' and as you do so, turn that naturally into simple, short prayers for the people and places you talk about, such as: Lord Jesus, help the people who work in the Post Office. Father God, come close to those in the Nursing Home. Come
Holy Spirit and help the leaders at the Town Hall to make good decisions. It may help to encourage children to reach out their hands over the
places that they pray for, but don't force this. Let the children pray in the way they feel most comfortable. They may choose just to be silent and look at the map as they make their prayers quietly in their hearts to God. After all, it's adults who should be learning from children, according to Jesus, and not the other way around. Remember to take a picture of the map you create so it can become a
regular reminder on a notice board of the need to pray for all those who live and work near to where you worship. It might also prompt adults in your church to pray for the community. In fact this sort of prayer for the whole church - young and old - is an ideal all-age activity that could be a real focus for your local part in God's global mission. But a word of warning: don't let the adults take over with their 'perfect
maps'! Remember it's the 'perfect' praise of children that has the real power, as far as God is concerned! |
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