Sixth graders at FBC Trussville ‘equipped’ to lead active and organized prayer lives

Equipping preteens to lead active and organized prayer lives was the focus of a recent winter retreat at WorldSong for sixth graders at First Baptist Church, Trussville. According to Yvonne Looney, director of childhood education at First, Trussville, instilling consistent prayer habits in this age group is of particular importance as they approach their teenage years and begin making decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.
   
“The only way you can do and be everything you can be is to have a personal relationship with God,” she told the group. “If you don’t have that, you’re never going to know what you can achieve.”
   
Emphasizing that God is in the hearts of all Christians and, therefore, available for conversation at any given time, Looney taught the group some prayer “tricks” to help them stay focused on praying. She suggested setting out visual reminders such as an extra chair or a coffee cup to signify the literal presence of God. She also showed them how to use the acronym ACTS (adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication) as a pattern in line with what Jesus taught about prayer.
   
Looney led the group in starting personal prayer journals by asking them to list people they intended to pray for daily, weekly or at other intervals. She used the examples of how she prays daily for her family; weekly for her fellow church staffers by focusing on a few each day; and for each of the approximately 150 workers in her church’s children’s division on their birthdays.
   
She also suggested that the preteens take a Scripture, write it in their prayer journals, and personalize it in their prayers. She used a verse from Psalms to demonstrate how it could be used in the adoration aspect of their prayers.
   
“Prayer is a journey,” she said, “and you can see yourself grow through your prayer journal.”
   
Kyle Wiltshire, children’s associate at First, Trussville, led some of the sessions at the retreat. He helped the preteens understand how attitude and patience play important roles in one’s prayer life and how what they want may not necessarily be in God’s will.
   
“We see a very little part of the whole picture,” he explained. “God sees the whole picture and where you fit in. We’ve got to remember that we’re talking to the Creator of the universe and we have to be respectful of that.”
   
Wiltshire used the example of Jesus at Gethsemane (Matt. 26:36-46) to give the group a three-step formula for facing difficult situations: turning to God, then by desiring God’s will and by tackling problems head-on.
   
“We are to be imitators of Christ,” he said. “Jesus took prayer very seriously and so should we.”
   
Practical application was used in the final session of the retreat as preteens huddled in small groups and spoke sentence prayers focusing on the adoration, thanksgiving and supplication aspects of prayer. Confession, Looney explained, should be between an individual and God, something which should be prayed about during private time.
   
Looney encouraged the preteens to be persistent and not to get discouraged when prayers are not answered right away, citing her 25-year prayer that her father would be saved. Her prayer was finally answered when her father professed faith last year and was baptized.
   
“The very first discipline you need as a Christian is prayer,” she told the group, “and you need to be consistent and organized. God is a big God, but He’s a personal God. I want your prayer life to be real.”