Family Prayers
A quick note on these prayers: The practice of prayer can be understood in many different ways, but perhaps the simplest is that it is setting aside time to be in conversation with God. It is an opportunity for us to share our deepest thoughts and feelings, to give thanks to God, or to humbly ask for a sense of God’s presence in our lives.
After our son was born, I mistakenly assumed it would be several years before we would say prayers as a family - after all, how could he understand what praying meant? I was surprised, though, when at 18 months he held out his hands at the start of one dinner and started saying 'p-ay, p-ay, p-ay' after a trip to his grandparents. We held hands and said a very short prayer, concluding with an 'Amen' that made him break out into a huge grin and an 'aaaaa-meh' echo. After that, prayer became part of the dinner routine; it wasn't the words we were saying, but the practice of praying together that mattered.
Most of us feel comfortable praying by ourselves. We have our own internal language and relationship with God and we trust that, even if we aren’t able to fully articulate what we are thinking, God nonetheless hears our prayers. But while we are willing to cut ourselves some slack when we are praying alone, we unfortunately give ourselves far less grace when it comes to praying with and around others. We stress over our choice of words and the structure of our sentences, we become paranoid about accidentally saying the wrong thing, and we generally feel as though someone else should be praying instead of us.
This fear of praying in front of others often extends to our family life as well. Over the last several years, I’ve heard more than a handful of parents express a concern that they’re not teaching their kids to pray the right way. But while the overly professionalized prayers that we hear in worship can sometimes make it seem like we need some special training or skill to pray, the reality is that all of us are more than capable of teaching our children how to pray. The missing ingredient, I think, is our own self-confidence – something that can easily come through routine practice. So, with that in mind, the prayers in the links above are merely a way to help your family get in the habit of setting aside time to pray and to feel comfortable doing it. Have fun experimenting with different prayers at different times of day, and adapt them however you'd like - it's amazing how powerful this simple practice can be!
After our son was born, I mistakenly assumed it would be several years before we would say prayers as a family - after all, how could he understand what praying meant? I was surprised, though, when at 18 months he held out his hands at the start of one dinner and started saying 'p-ay, p-ay, p-ay' after a trip to his grandparents. We held hands and said a very short prayer, concluding with an 'Amen' that made him break out into a huge grin and an 'aaaaa-meh' echo. After that, prayer became part of the dinner routine; it wasn't the words we were saying, but the practice of praying together that mattered.
Most of us feel comfortable praying by ourselves. We have our own internal language and relationship with God and we trust that, even if we aren’t able to fully articulate what we are thinking, God nonetheless hears our prayers. But while we are willing to cut ourselves some slack when we are praying alone, we unfortunately give ourselves far less grace when it comes to praying with and around others. We stress over our choice of words and the structure of our sentences, we become paranoid about accidentally saying the wrong thing, and we generally feel as though someone else should be praying instead of us.
This fear of praying in front of others often extends to our family life as well. Over the last several years, I’ve heard more than a handful of parents express a concern that they’re not teaching their kids to pray the right way. But while the overly professionalized prayers that we hear in worship can sometimes make it seem like we need some special training or skill to pray, the reality is that all of us are more than capable of teaching our children how to pray. The missing ingredient, I think, is our own self-confidence – something that can easily come through routine practice. So, with that in mind, the prayers in the links above are merely a way to help your family get in the habit of setting aside time to pray and to feel comfortable doing it. Have fun experimenting with different prayers at different times of day, and adapt them however you'd like - it's amazing how powerful this simple practice can be!