Mexborough Baptist Church Sunday 31st January 2021
Have you noticed how much we've prayed as scattered church over the last 46 weeks? In our services and EXTRAs and extra EXTRAs. We've prayed for more people, we've been called to prayer and now we have our 12 noon Big Ben prayers. In our all-age family worship service today (the 5th Sunday in the month), we're going to be looking at some practical ways of praying together in our families. Before we do that, we're going to call each other to worship God as we sing 'Come on and Celebrate' followed by 'What a faithful God' (click on the links)
Did you notice that in the second song we were singing to God? Some of our hymns and songs are prayers set to music. This is nothing new, many of the Psalms in the Old Testament were prayers set to music. Let's read one of them - Psalm 8 - out loud together.
How great is your name, O Lord our God, through all the earth!
Your majesty is praised above the heavens; on the lips of children and of babes you have found praise to foil your enemy, to silence the foe and the rebel.
When I see the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars which you arranged, what is man that you should keep him in mind, mortal man that you should care for him?
Yet you made him little less than a god; with glory and honour you crowned him, gave him power over the works of your hand, put all things under his feet.
All of them, sheep and cattle, yes, even the savage beasts, birds of the air, and fish that make their way through the waters.
How great is your name, O Lord our God, through all the earth!
The psalm says that even the youngest of us can pray, as this video shows click on this link
One of the most famous prayers in the world is the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples - The Lord's Prayer. It's sometimes called the Family Prayer. But how well do you know it? We've got a little trivia quiz about it for you. See how well you do. Click on this link
We usually say the Lord's Prayer together, but it has also been set to music many times. Click on this link
Lisa shares with us about...
Praying together in the Family
The Bible tells us that it is important to include our children when we spend time with the Lord. In Matthew 19:13-15, Jesus chastised His Disciples when they tried to turn the children away -
Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them. Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’ When he had placed his hands on them, he went on from there.
Paul, in Ephesians 6:4, tells us to rear them tenderly in the training of the Lord.
Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.
What better way to introduce or encourage our children in their own relationship with God than to spend time praying together with them?
This week, we're taking inspiration from the grown ups' midday prayer, and we're going to do a prayer Hi-5!
We have a lot of handprints in our home. Some are intentional art we have made, and some are unintentional art the children have made on their own!
Take a piece of paper and draw around your hand. Carefully cut out your handprint - you may need a grown-up to help you. Choose a prayer topic for each finger (see the picture below). You can make your own prayer topics but this is an idea of what we can do:
Thumb - Thank you God! - think of something to say thank you to God for today
Pointer - Please - is there something I want to ask God for?
Middle - My school - pray for your teachers and school friends
Ring - Relatives - pray for your family.
Small - Society - pray for the wider world - your town, your country, or the whole wide world.
When you have finished, you can hang it somewhere you'll see it and be reminded of it often to help you pray.
In our family, at 5 pm, just before we start our bath and bedtime routine, we'll stop for a moment to remember to pray, and when we've remembered all five points, we can do a big family Hi-5! (We like to pile our hands up and shout "Team Bond" after three!) You could choose a time which suits your family.
When the weather allows, you could even turn your daily walks into "prayer hunts". We often turn our walks into scavenger hunts where we try to find things like a red car, a cat, someone running, etc., but we could allocate a prayer subject to each item on our list! You can make your own based on the things you usually see around your area, but as an example, this is ours:
- A postman/woman - pray for key workers
- A red car - pray for our friends
- A pushchair - pray for our family
- A flower - pray for our world
- Someone running - pray for the health of those we know
See how many prayers you can pray before you get back home!
Thank you, Lisa, for sharing something so practical with us for our families to engage in prayer together. We're never too old for practical aids to prayer; if you don't have children at home or you're on your own, you can still give it a go. Let's do that now by using Lisa's Hi-5!
Thumb - Thank you God! - think of something to say thank you to God for today
Pointer - Please - is there something I want to ask God for?
Middle - My school - pray for your teachers and school friends
Ring - Relatives - pray for your family.
Small - Society - pray for the wider world - your town, your country, or the whole wide world.
Hi-5! Or, if you prefer, Amen!
Our closing hymn is a good old favourite which tells us that we can bring anything and everything to God in prayer - 'What a Friend We Have in Jesus' Click on this link
Benediction
The word 'benediction' literally means 'speaking good'. It's a prayer for good things for people and often comes at the end of a service. In the Bible this kind of prayer is often called a 'blessing'. Here is a family blessing for us to say together.
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