Weekly Bulletin
Sunday School
Open House and Coffee Hour
Sunday, March 16, 2008
In Sunday School this winter we have looked at the topic of prayer. Our Bible verse for February was Don’t worry about anything, but pray about everything. With thankful hearts offer up your prayers and requests to God. Phillippians 4:6(CEV)
To put yourself in touch with what our children are learning, think back to your earliest memories of prayer. Or perhaps you remember questions and comments of children in your life that have given you insight into the imagination and natural curiosity of children.
Being with a child can spark or renew our own curiosity and imagination, too often buried under layers of reality and years of disuse. Their questions regularly send us to deeper levels in our own thinking, and the best answer is often “What do you think?” Their fresh ideas can push us to a new realization of the God who created and loves us.
From the hours of conversations recorded by Robert Coles in The Spiritual Life of Children to the anecdotes in every parent’s memory, we can be assured that children connect with God on many levels. Our task as parents or adults in their lives is not to manufacture this connection. Rather it is to help children keep that connection alive. As Betty Shannon Cloyd says in Children and Prayer, “If we as people of faith value our children, we will recognize that one of our most significant responsibilities is to help them stay in touch with their spiritual selves” (p. 12). And if you are worried about your capacity for doing this, take the advice of Thomas Merton to heart: “If you want a life of prayer, the way to get it is by praying. You start where you are and you deepen what you already have.”
Plan to join us on Sunday, March 16th for coffee hour at the Church House and learn about prayer through the eyes of a child. Visit the desert and the Garden of Gesthemane, places where Jesus prayed. Our children will help you offer up your prayers and requests to God.
Last Updated: Tuesday, February 26, 2008