The Pondering Blog
Prayer Without 'ceasing'?
I never really understood what “Pray without ceasing” meant as a child.
I knew the ‘actual’ meaning was “don’t stop praying”, but I also knew the adults often meant other things that they never explained.
The bible verse it came from was often quoted with a knowing nod, and that was it.
I couldn’t help wondering how I kept praying when I had to go to school and didn’t want to get into trouble!
I’m not going to do a bible study on this, but for reference, here is the verse with the equally important verses each side:
Always be joyful.
Never stop praying.
Give thanks no matter what happens.
God wants you to thank him because you believe in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians Chapter 5 verses 16 - 18 (NiRV)
Now I’m an adult, the irony is not lost on me that those quoting; “Pray without ceasing!” rarely looked as though they’d read the verse before it: “Always be joyful”!
I like these verses kept together because it says more about prayer and life than just “don’t stop”.
I’ve written before about how I and others have been taught about prayer as children - if at all! (You can find it here)
It generally seemed to be rule based and more about collecting points for heaven than a relationship with God:
- Get up early to pray.
- Pray before you go to sleep.
- The longer you pray the better.
- Get it all in the right order.
- Use the right language.
This often leaves people who struggle with a lot of this ‘advice’ feeling like inferior Christians and a failure.
It’s good to have a habit of prayer - but there are many ways to create that habit.
Some are wired for the advice above and blessed by it.
Others are more wired to pray as they go through their day. A conversation with a friend will often have pauses and then pickup again a short time later, and in the same way, our conversations with God can also be like this. It’s still an intentional habit of prayer - it’s just looks different and is more spaced out.
A good friend of mine was telling me recently that the best advice she was given as an adult about prayer was:
“Just talk to Him!”
With so many books out there, that many struggle to read because they’re just not accessible, those four words of advice are the wisest and most precious teaching on prayer I’ve heard.
Just Talk To Him.
Because of many things in my life, including different disabilities I can struggle with prayer myself.
This is probably why I want to do as much as I can to support other people who might struggle!
Many of my friends are Neurodivergent, struggle with anxiety, or have other disabilities that affect concentration too.
I also want those precious friends to be released into a world of prayer, that helps them to be closer to Jesus.
Creating Accessible Prayer Activities
Do you want to create your own prayer resources?
Or how about adapting resources you’ve found so they work for all abilities?
Do it - you won't regret it!
Here’s some thoughts to help you on your way…
I use creative prayer in lots of ways:
- At the end of a session, to allow children to ponder and process what they have just learnt. (Some children need more time to process and space to question. We find some children just hold the activity and ask a ton of questions!)
- To think about a specific aspect of God’s character.
- To work through worries and anxieties.
- To think about current issues such as refugees, bullying or anxiety.
- And, of course, to help us get to know God better!
The first things we need to think through are the what, the how and the who.
What:
What is the topic? Be clear in your own mind and make sure you can sum it up in one short sentence. If you can’t easily sum it up, the children will struggle too.
What do you want the outcome to be?
This is a bit like teaching outcomes, just a little more fluid (We don’t want to contain what the holy Spirit might do!)
We need to know the direction of what we’re doing - even if it changes! So do try to have these outcomes in mind, such as:
- An ‘in the moment’ response to God and doing something to ground that response.
- A decision to do something in the future and allowing the activity to frame that response in their own understanding and life.
- Having an item to take away to remind and encourage ongoing prayers.New paragraph
What are you going to use?
You can use almost anything to focus prayer, but it needs to be an obvious link that takes only a little explaining. For example. after the Manchester bombing we used plasters. The children put the plaster on their hands or wrists to pray for those who were hurt - in any way. It was an obvious link with a simple application.
It could be something to hold, something to do and/or something to take away. For example - we had inflatable crowns to wear when we were talking about being children of the King [God]. We sent them home with a small wooden crown cutout to remind them what it means to be a child of the King.
Who is it for?
Is it for a church all age activity, your children’s group or being sent home for a family to do together? As you will already know - this will affect the how and the what. But if this is something to go home to families, either send the props or make sure you use items that are easily accessed. Not every family has or can afford plasticine, bubbles or crayons etc.
How?:
How are you going to do the prayer?
How are you going to make it accessible?
How are you going to make it easily understood?
Keeping it accessible is really important:
As already said, keeping the link between the theme and the activity needs to be obvious, as is keeping it simple.
By simple, I don’t mean babyish. I mean clear, with basic language and only a few instructions that are easy to follow (given one at a time).
Providing a finished example is always helpful - when I’m doing a set of prayer spaces, there are always one or two done already that give different directions of thought.
Make ‘writing’ the last option.
Instead, make non-writing and non-verbal approaches the first choice, speaking or drawing a second option and writing presented as an aside ‘if you really want to’. It’s probably the opposite of what normally happens; write this here, but if you can’t, just draw something….. We want the first option to be something everyone can do and doesn’t set apart those who struggle to write or speak, for whatever reason, but rather something that normalises how they work and flourish. Knowing the children and families well helps you to know how to pitch the ‘how’ of what we do.New paragraph
Make sure things that need to be read are visually accessible or have another way of accessing them - even if that is someone verbally guiding one step at a time.
In making this accessible, don’t assume that all children with additional needs have a learning disability or that they can’t understand deeper spiritual things. Many children classed as having additional needs can access more than you think, regardless of what their disability is, and will often come to profound conclusions.
Give multiple ways of responding:
We do a shouting prayer - that you don’t have to shout for!
We give the option of whispering, saying, signing/doing an action, *shouting, drawing or writing (if they wish to do so). *If we know we have children who would struggle with the noise and suddenness of shouting - we leave that option out.
In this particular prayer, we are asking for one word that describes God - we offer that one word up to God in whatever way we choose as a way to praise God.
Another example of multiple ways of doing a prayer can be seen in the
praying about Anger activity on this site.
Where all the children can cope, we use the little pop up creatures to show explosive anger. But, if we know we will have children would struggle with the suddenness of those, we change to a different way using an elastic band - either flicked at the wall (That way the child is in charge of the sudden bit) or put around a cup to ‘twang’ it against the cup - there’s lots of ways to adapt to the needs of your particular group of children.
The final things to remember are very short:
Pray about it yourself and have fun.
Happy praying!
