by Lauren Tucker

Before your feet hit the floor someone is calling your name, Momma Momma Momma, three times in two seconds the morning is off to its usual start. It's easy to just go into autopilot and do your daily routine. Eat breakfast, get dressed (maybe), and go about your day. No matter what your day looks like there is a part we often miss: PRAYER! For instance, we forget to pray in the rush to get the kids on the bus. We forget to pray as we rush off to work running back into the house to get the “thing we forgot”. Even as we sit down to dinner and start to eat, are we aware of the true blessings that we have, or do we just say grace to get on with it. Why has prayer become an afterthought?

We as parents have been ordained as our children's primary spiritual leader. In this time of fasting and prayer what if we not only gave our all into it but included our kids in the prayers. What would it look like for our kids to be invited into our prayer over all the aspects of our church? Think of the conversations we could have with our kids while discipling them in prayer. Each week you entrust your kids into the hands of some amazing and wonderful volunteers who take time from their lives to plan and execute our kids ministry. There are around 60+ kids and numerous volunteers each week caring for them. Over the last month as the kids have been called to the front to be prayed for before being dismissed you have been able to see a percentage of them.

Our kids pay attention to what we are consumed by and they emulate us. Their ideas and values though are not solely influenced by us anymore. The internet and social media have a constant and deep pull on our kids and the way they view themselves and perceive their value. If we place value in prayer and growing our relationship with God, our kids will see where we are focused and we can begin to pray for our church as a family. By bringing our children into prayer over the ministry that directly affects them, we are showing them that we value not just them but the things that affect them. We place an emphasis on the importance of prayer over our teachers, our classrooms, our leaders, and our kids. Teaching our kids about praying directly to God gives them access to the one that created them and finds them to be a treasure. In a world where our kids crave the Insta-famous, what if instead they crave to be God-seekers, Bible readers, and prayer warriors.

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