Praying with kids and teens

14 June 2023

Prayer can be one of the biggest stumbling blocks in children's and youth ministry.

How can we teach young people to pray? What happens if they’re struggling to catch from God? And what about prayer ministry amongst kids and teens?

In this Lunch with Leaders, we welcomed Rachel Turner to share insights into prayer from her vast experience of working with 0-18s and their families.

Rachel helpfully divided the topic into three different areas of prayer which we might encounter:

1. Enabling prayer

This is when we coach or train children to nurture their relationship with God in prayer. We might use chat and catch techniques, drip-feeding the approach gradually by starting small, scattering it throughout our group time, or just focusing on chat to begin with.

2. Praying with children

This is when children need some help in starting off their prayer life. They might ask us to sit with them and pray a little; we could then offer gentle prompts to aid their own prayer.

3. Praying for children

This is essentially prayer ministry for children. A child might request prayer about a bigger issue, and we can gather round them, often with other children, to intercede for them.

Watch the full training video for details.

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