Praying With Children

Recently, a parent asked me some advice about praying with her children. I thought you may be interested in seeing what I said. Bless ya!

Pastor Randy

---Response---

You, as parents have the great opportunity to create an environment where your kids will desire more of God in their lives. I often think of the verse, "Taste and see the Lord is good." We want to give kids a good taste of what God has for them. And we want that taste to be something that makes them yearn and hunger for more of God. There's a big difference between force feeding kids a plateful of food though, and giving them a taste. I also recognize that "in the natural" a child usually has an attention span of about 1 minute per year of age...if they are interested in what they are doing. (That's why a 4 year old teacher cannot tell a 10 minute story.)

I believe that prayertimes can be a part of that "tasting" process when children are exposed to the goodness of God. These prayertimes should fit a child's perspectives and appear directly applicable to their lives. We do want them to think that prayer is relevant and life-giving. If they are bored and turned off by the prayertimes, they will assume, in time, that prayer is boring and irrelevant.

Something I did, when my kids were younger, is this:
There were times where I would go to my bedroom to pray. I'd tell the kids that's what I was going to do, and if they wanted to join me for prayer, they were welcome. (No guilt. No heavy-handedness. Just an invitation.)

Often, one or two of them would come in and spend 5 or 10 minutes with me kneeling by the bed. I would always pray outloud.

I would invite them to join me in "conversational prayer." Which means we would:
1. first of all list things that we should pray about.
2. Then I would pray first about that thing (for a few sentences or a paragraph)
3. Then they would pray about that same thing outloud.
4. Then we would move on to the second thing on the list...maybe they would pray first this time...
5. We alternated praying together until we got through our list.
6. Then I would always pray a prayer of blessing on them, and allow them to go if they wanted too.
These were precious times.

I also think of scripture that talks about "pray constantly." (1 Thess. 5:17) So, throughout the day, when driving the car, etc., I'd just say a short outloud prayer, yes to God, but so my kids would also hear me. I want them to understand that prayer is a normal, often repeated, part of life, and not just a scheduled event.

Through the years I have also taught this acrostic for prayer:
P- praise (thank God for who He is and what he has done)
R - Repent (things to be sorry for...and things in me that need to change)
A - Ask (ask God for help. Prayer for others too)
Y - Yeild (Saying "not my will but yours be done." and also allowing God to speak to me...)

I've taught kids that if you spend just even a minute on each of these, you will pray about five minutes a day. It's easy for that time to stretch longer once started.

There's a few thoughts. Hopefully they are helpful!

Bless you as you disciple those wonderful girls!

Pastor Randy

Freedom!

Today I find myself at Assembly Park Camp in Northern Wisconsin. I, and most of my family, are kids camp speakers here with a great group of kids and staff. It took about five hours to drive here from Willmar.

Last night I shared the message of Jesus' sacrifice and saw many children, for the first time. commit their lives to Christ.

It made me think about how wonderful it is to live in a country like this, where we can tell others about our faith in Jesus. Not everyone can do that around the world. Some places will not allow people to talk about Jesus.

Right now, my daughter Brooke, is in Guatamala. She is there with Greg Phillips (who did our Family Extravaganza a year ago.) They are going into orphanages, schools, and prisons telling people there about Jesus too.

As our special guest, Jeff Struecker, said on Sunday morning. We should be thankful for our freedom as a country. But, God wants us to have freedom spiritually too.

You may read about that in John 8:34-36. Take time to read that today, and be thankful that Jesus' sets us free from sin!

See you soon!

Willmar Fest Parade

We had a great time with almost 50 people helping represent Kidsworld ministries at the parade. Did you see us there?! We were out to promote the upcoming VBS on July 26-29. Get signed up now at http://www.willmarag.org/

Good Defeats Evil in the End

Romans 12:21 “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

Read together 1 Samuel Chapter 26. This chapter talks about the story about David Spares Saul’s Life. In the end, God rewarded David for the choices he made.

In Revelation, it tells us about when Jesus’ second coming:

-Satan and armies from this earth will rise up to fight Jesus.
-Jesus and the armies of heaven will come and wipe them out. And then the devil will be taken and thrown into the lake of fire! powerpoint
-Good always beats evil. God always beats the devil. Sometimes it seems bad, but don’t give up hope. Good will come to you, in time, if you will keep choosing the good. (like David)

We know the good ---first of all----by knowing God.

Do remember WWJD? The Holy Spirit helps you know what Jesus would do.

Ask God, and he will help you. Show by your decisions, your actions and your attitudes that you belong to Jesus. Choose the good. …and KEEP ON choosing the good.

Even in the bad times, God is working for your good. Good will win.

Fear and Anxiety In Kids

Recently I viewed an article that had some good input for parents. This article was found on the National Assemblies of God Children's ministries blog. You may read it at:

http://www.gphchildren.blogspot.com/

Bless ya today!

Pastor Randy

What Does Choosing Good Look Like?

The Holy Spirit wants to help you make good decisions. To help you recognize if ideas are from God, or from somewhere else.

How do we listen to God? When we ask Jesus into our lives, God promised to help us choose good.

Read together Matthew 3:13-17; 4:1-11. These verses talks about how Jesus beats the Devil.

Sometimes we want to make some evil choices instead of good choices; however, making a few bad choices can mess up the rest of our good choices.

God has given us one never wrong way to know how to choose good over evil. He gave us the Bible. Any feeling or teaching or thought that is truly from God will agree with the Bible.

God wants to help you make good choices. It's important to remember, God will speak to us if we ask him too. We just have to LOOK and LISTEN to make good choices.

Prayer: Pray that we may hear God and know the difference between good and bad choices

Telling the Difference Between Good and Evil

Key Verse: Romans 12:21 "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."

Like the two glasses that looked the same, you cannot always tell just from the outside appearance if something is good or bad. That's why you need to listen to good advice, and listen most of all to God.

How do you know which one to choose?

If you look and see that a choice will help people love and obey God, it's a good choice?
If you look and see that a choice will cause people to disobey God, you are looking at a wrong, evil choice.

In Exodus 7:1-13, you may read about when Moses and Aaron confronted Pharaoah and the Egypian "magi". They both had to make a huge choice to follow God's commends or not; even though they were about to face some hard times, they decided to follow and obey God no matter what.

Prayer: Lord, help us to make good choices. Help us to not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil by making good chices. Choices that help us love and obey you.