Summer: Teach them to pray

Do you see that countdown chain?? Yikes! Summer vacation is almost here!!! Yippee.

 Actually Christian only has five more days of school. 

I've been spending a LOT of time prepping for summer. I want to be really intentional with the time we have and I've made some specific goals for each of my kids academically, spiritually and in the area of character development.

 One of my main goals for both Christian & McKenna is to teach them to pray. They're great at praying for their food or praying for someone to get better, but beyond that they don't know what to say. So we're getting intentional about it by using this cute little basket on our kitchen table.

The basket is from Target! Love it!

 Inside the basket are popsicle sticks with the names of all our our extended family members, names of missionaries, names of neighbors, teachers, etc. Some of the sticks just say "give thanks" or "share a prayer request." The original plan was that each child would pick a stick when we sit down to dinner and it would be their job to pray for whoever or whatever their stick says.

We were going to get started with this when school is out but I'm not even kidding...they couldn't wait to do it. So we started this weekend and they want to pray for someone every time they sit down at the table. We've almost gone through all the sticks (in just one weekend). Yesterday I even heard them pull a stick and pray for people all on their own. Christian gave McKenna some hints about what to say and she even did it without any help. When I sat down at the table a few minutes later she wanted to repeat her prayer again so I could hear it.

I know the novelty will wear off at some point. But in the meantime I'm enjoying hearing the precious voices of my children lifted up to their heavenly father. And don't worry, I've got a plan B for later in the summer when they're tired of this prayer strategy. I'll share about that later!

Luke 11: 1

"One day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, one of his disciples said to him, "Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples."