Four Creative Ways to Pray
Over the last few years the Lord has given a few of our staff divine strategies that cultivate an environment of creativity for children to jump into Jesus’s lap. We encourage you to try these activities to invite the children in your family or community into a powerful encounter with their loving God.
1. Prayer Caves
Children stay more engaged in worship, especially preschoolers, when they are encouraged to sit on bended knees with face covered in their arms on the floor. You can call this going into their “prayer caves”. It is their own secret hiding place with Jesus, and their neighbors can’t distract them from connecting with the Lord.
2. Hide and Seek
Kids love to search for hidden things. Did you know there is a great game of hide-n-seek going on? God is searching for worshippers who will worship with spirit and truth. Do you want to be found? What about when it is your turn to be tagged “it”? How do you find God? We have to press through in worship with all of our hearts (Jeremiah 29:13). So, does that mean we can be thinking about our favorite video game while singing words on our lips? That would mean you would be “it” for a very long time in this game! And, there is a prize when you win: God rewards those who keep searching for him (Hebrews 11:6).
3. Sing, Draw, Dance, and Act
Take a passage of scripture and watch it come to life before you and the children when you put it to song, to canvas, or “on the stage” in your living room.
4. Spontaneous Worship
God strategically planned that worship from children would silence the enemy (Psalm 8:2). You might consider giving the children a special key or medal that represents the authority they have to stop the enemy’s lies over their family or their city, simply by opening their mouth in praise to our God.
Take this a step further: If you play an instrument, sing a popular chorus that the children know. Move into a time of spontaneous song while playing the same chords. Invite the children to sing their own songs to the Lord, one at a time or all together in unison. This spontaneous praise is called tehilliah in the Hebrew—it is the “praise” that God inhabits in Psalm 22:3.
Don’t be surprised if God speaks to them in pictures or if they encounter him in a powerful way when you establish this kind of worship with them. This is the place where heaven touches earth in worship. When children are scared or have a problem, go straight to this place with them, and they will hear straight from heaven.
Read Part 1: Engaging the Imagination
Read Part 3: Praying for Others
ABOUT
This series has been prepared by Alice Collier, who lives and serves in Phnom Penh, Cambodia with her husband and three young children. Alice’s passion is to see children of all ages and backgrounds reconnected with the deep love of their Heavenly Father.