Small Group Leader s Guide Theme: Prayer Date: 23/24 August 2014 Lesson 2: What do we pray? Lesson Objective: 1. That the children will learn that they can pray at all times. 2. That the children will learn to use the Prayer Clock to pray with their parents during their Family Altar Time. Memory Verse: At all times, pray by the power of the Spirit. Pray all kinds of prayers. Be watchful, so that you can pray. Always keep on praying for all of God s people. Ephesians 6:18 (NIRV) Character / Virtue Focus: Perseverance Introduction We have started a new series on teaching the children on prayer. There will be various aspects of prayer that we will be covering such as What is Prayer? and How to pray? Other topics include Prayer Intercession and Praying in the Spirit. Prayer is really the foundation of growing closer to God. If children can learn to lay hold of prayer earlier in their lives, we believe they will go through life more victorious. In the course of learning to pray, they can also develop the character of Perseverance. So leaders, let s get on into this exciting journey with your kids. For this series, we want to specially acknowledge Karen Henley s curriculum on Prayer and Mark Harper s curriculum on Learning to Pray. Week 1 What is Prayer? Week 2 What do we pray? Week 3 How do we pray? Week 4 Praying the Psalms Week 5 Prayer Intercession I Week 6 Prayer Intercession II Week 7 Praying in the Spirit Connect/ Ice-breaker The A-Z prayer items (15 mins) On the whiteboard, write down the alphabets A to Z. Ask the children to take turns to tell you what are the things they normally pray for from A to Z. It can be anything. For instance, the children can say, I pray for A Angels, E Exams, G Grandparents, D my dog etc. Copyright 2014 by GKidz, FCBC Page 1
Lesson (10 mins) Before the lesson, write the memory verse on the whiteboard. Memory Verse At all times, pray by the power of the Spirit. Pray all kinds of prayers. Be watchful, so that you can pray. Always keep on praying for all of God s people. Ephesians 6:18 (NIRV) Leader says, The memory verse tells us that we can pray at all times. We can pray in the morning, during recess time, when we take our shower, before we take our meals, when we sleep. God listens to us all the time, He does not sleep, He is on duty 24 hours. Isn t God amazing? That s why in our church we have a 24/7 Prayer Tower. The cell group leaders take turn to lead and pray at the Prayer Tower. Leaders, you can share your personal experience at the 24/7 Prayer Tower. Ask the children, How long do you pray? 1 minute? 5 minutes? 30 mins? How many of you had prayed for 1 hour before? Let s practise some Maths here. 1. If we pray 1 minute for each item and there are 12 items, how many mins will it take? (Ans:12 mins) 2. If we pray 2 minutes for each item and there are 12 items, how many mins will it take? (Ans: 24 mins) 3. If we pray 5 minutes for each item and there are 12 items, how many mins will it take? (Ans: 60 mins) When we break up our prayer time into different segments, it is easy to pray for even an hour. To help us to know what to pray, we are going to make a Prayer Clock. Activity Make a Prayer Clock (15 mins) Materials: Big paper plate, small paper plate, prayer clock template, fasteners (1 per child, GKidz to provide) Group prayer clock (1 per group, GKidz to provide) Give each child 2 paper plates 1 big paper plate and 1 small paper plate. They are to paste the Prayer Clock Template onto the bigger paper plate. They put the smaller paper plate onto the bigger paper plate using a fastener. The finished product should look something like this. Small paper plate Please note that the wedge should not be cut all the way into the middle so that the fastener can secure hold both plates together Copyright 2014 by GKidz, FCBC Page 2
Timothy Club (P1-3) Year 1 How to use the Prayer Clock (25 mins) The Prayer Clock has 12 segments. They are:1. Praise God for who He is 2. Read a Psalm 3. Thank God for everything (good and bad) 4. Say sorry for my sins 5. Pray for my family 6. Pray for my school and studies, and any other needs 7. Worship God with a song or you can listen to a song in the CD 8. Pray in tongues 9. Listen to God and journal what He says 10. Pray for my pre-believing friends 11. Pray for my country and its leaders 12. Pray for other countries and missionaries Now we are going to practice how to use the Prayer Clock. We are going to pray for 1 minute for each of the 12 items. That means we are going to pray for 12 minutes. Leaders, you can use your smart phone as a stop watch. Alternatively you can bring a small alarm clock and set it to ring at 12 minutes. Copyright 2014 by GKidz, FCBC Page 3
1. Praise God for who He is Go round the group and ask each child to think of one adjective of God and say Praise God for He is 2. Read a Psalm Read Psalm 150 with the children aloud. If possible, write it on the whiteboard. 3. Thank God for everything (good and bad) Go round the group and ask each child to thank God for something He had done for them the past week. 4. Say sorry for my sins Ask the children to think of 1 thing they knew they did wrong and whisper to God, Dear God, I am sorry for 5. Pray for my family List down the things the children can pray for their family love, joy, peace, God s provisions, health etc. Ask the children to choose 1 thing to pray for their family. 6. Pray for my school and studies, and any other needs Ask the children to pray for their studies. They can also pray for their classmates, teachers and principal in their school. If they can t think of any need, pray the Jabez prayer (1 Chronicles 4:10) 7. Worship God with a song or you can even play a CD End the time of prayer by playing one song from your Smartphone or Ipad. Just have the children to close their eyes and listen to the worship song. 8. Pray in tongues Ask the children to speak in tongues and pray to God in a heavenly language, and build their connection with the Holy Spirit. For those who have not yet received the gift of tongues, lead them to receive this gift, or get them to pray quietly in their spirit. 9. Listen to God and journal what He says Ask the children to close their eyes and lie down. Encourage them to listen to God for one minute. Then ask them to write down or draw what God has shown them. 10. Pray for my pre-believing friends (3x3) Ask the children to think of a friend who does not know Jesus and pray for that friend. Copyright 2014 by GKidz, FCBC Page 4
11. Pray for my country and its leaders Lead the children to bless Singapore. Pray for the leaders to be wise, to govern the country well, to be free from dishonest practices, immoral entertainment and lawlessness. 12. Pray for other countries and missionaries in other countries Ask the children if they watch the news on TV. Encourage them that they can pray for the country that is featured in the news. You can lead the children to pray for any countries from what you heard from the news. It can be on anything, election, flooding, war or poverty in a particular country (e.g., Ebola disease spreading in Nigeria). You can pray for a missionary serving in another country. We can pray for our Gideonites and missionaries in Japan (Ps Caleb and Christina and Pek Kuan) and Timor Leste (Ps Catherine and Christine). Say to the children: You will realize that the time of prayer passes very quickly if we break our prayer time into different segments. Do you know that we had actually prayed for 12 minutes and more? Challenge the children to pray using the Prayer Clock with their parents once a week. Start small so that they don t get discouraged along the way. Ask the children to show their parents the Prayer Clock and have their parents pray along with them. You may want to show the Prayer Clock to the parents during dismissal and encourage them to pray with their children. Character / Virtue Focus: Perseverance (5 mins) Perseverance is sticking to something and being committed to do it. This week, as we learn to pray once a week using the Prayer Clock, encourage the children to persevere and start small. Start with 1 minute per prayer item, then progress to 2 minutes then eventually to 5 minutes. The value of perseverance is to start small and pace ourselves to finish the task. Copyright 2014 by GKidz, FCBC Page 5