Is there someone you know who would take on the task of getting people to pray for kids and families (if they were asked and given some ideas)?
PRAYER PARTNERS
✩ Link individual kids and safe adults to pray for each other. Talk with parents about this first.
✩ Connect kids ministry workers with other church members.
✩ Give safe adults the names of children in your church, holiday club, SRE class, etc to so they can be praying for them on a daily basis.
✩ Encourage the youth group to be praying for kids. Consider a Big Brother/Big Sister program.
✩ Encourage the senior members of the congregation to be praying for the younger families.
✩ Encourage families to pair up for the purpose of praying for each other.
PRAYER EVENTS
Hold a night of prayer for the church's children's ministry and outreach into the community. Hand out forms to children and families to complete beforehand "Please pray this for our family..." and to children's leaders "Please pray this for my ministry..." Pray the prayers at the event.
PRAYER IN PROGRAMS
Be intentional about including short relevant prayers for kids and families whenever appropriate as part of your programs. This underline the reality that God is there with you, actively involved.
✩ Invite a child to read a prewritten prayer to pray for the service they'll be part of or before the kids leave the service for their program.
✩ Ask a family to prepare a prayer and each have a part in praying it in church.
✩ When someone shares a need (like 'We went to see Grandma in hospital yesterday') say 'Let's pray about that' and say a simple sentence prayer. Sometimes ask 'Would someone like to pray for (Joe's) Grandma now?'
✩ Start a prayer followed by a silent time for kids to complete the sentence, eg 'Lord, please help our family to...'
PRAYER IN NOTES AND EMAILS
Do you believe in the importance of prayer for your ministry enough to give people a monthly prayer update? If you don't think anybody would be interested, try just one or two people who you think might be. Talk with them individually and explain that you would value them partnering with you by praying. Say you would like to let them know of things to pray about, then agree on a workable way to give them your points perhaps at the start of each month.
PRAYER CHAINS Form a special prayer chain to focus on the needs of children and families. Have some operating principles like writing down the prayer request and reading it exactly to the next person on the chain. Kids can be involved in prayer chains too or have a special chain for kids to pray for adults.