"Family Matters"
By Paul Kendall

Teaching Kids to Pray

Many years ago someone coined a phrase that says “The family that prays together stays together.” The sad news is that the average parent spends less than six minutes a day communicating with their children. My best guess is that little, if any, of that is in prayer.

Another oddity is that the great majority of Americans consider themselves to be Christians and would even encourage their children to pray – but never pray with them themselves. As a pastor I often ask others to pray in various circumstances. You’d be amazed at how many people shy away from the opportunity because they simply don’t know how to pray! I’ve even had people tell me “Ask me to do anything… but do not ask me to pray!

If you experienced car trouble and you were with a skilled mechanic – he would be quick to say “I can handle this repair” because he was well trained. He wouldn’t shy away and pretend he had no ability to fix the car. The same goes for prayer. So, when someone is afraid of praying it tells me that their parents spent no time teaching them to pray. I suppose it could be because the parents themselves didn’t really know how to pray.

Jesus was careful to teach his disciples how to pray in Matthew 6:9. It has become known as “The Lord’s Prayer.” Jesus’ intention, no doubt, was not necessarily to give them specific words to pray but, to give them an example of a good prayer and to encourage them to talk to their Heavenly Father every day.

I’ve made it a point to pray with my two children every night since they were born. As they began to learn to talk – we developed a format for our nightly prayer and I gave each of them a part of their own to pray.

This is how our night time prayer has gone for almost 18 years now:

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for all your blessings; for our health and our wonderful angels of protection.

We ask that you would continue your blessings on our family and on our home, on all our aunts, uncles, crazy cousins relatives and friends.

We want honor our mommy’s and daddy’s with a special blessing Lord, that would be; (and my daughter names my wife and I and each of our parents) and Lord we ask that you would bless our authorities (and my son call’s out the list starting with the President of our country.)

Father we pray that you would bless Uncle Sherman; help him to turn his life around, Albert in prison; help him to be a bright light in a dark place, and for my friend Young, that he would come to know you as his savior.

Lord, we ask that you would put your mark on our doorpost so that all bad things would see that Jesus lives here and go right on by. And we ask you to give us a good night’s sleep so we’ll wake up rested and ready to serve you another day.

Oh what sweet memories I have of my children laying there – one on either side with their heads rested on my chest… teaching them to pray. We still do it to this day. Add to that, all the other countless times we’ve prayed together and guess what? Ask for someone to pray and they’ll be the first to volunteer.

When our family has experienced some of the toughest times we made it through greatly because we believe in the power of prayer. So, when bedtime rolls around tonight Mom & Dad - take fifteen minutes to pray with your children. Hey! You’ll be two times ahead of the National average!

That's Family Matters... I'm Paul Kendall.

Paul Kendall is the host of the popular syndicated radio program "Family Matters" and author of a new book by the same name. Radio programs, family resources and much more are available at www.KendallFamilyNetwork.com.