Are we Fostering a Deep Foundation of Prayer in our Students?
As Christian educators we have many responsibilities each and everyday, but unlike secular teachers, our most important tasks are not necessarily related to our academic curricula. As brain-friendly, God-focused teachers who want to instill a deep love of God in our students, facilitating a deep and meaningful prayer life is essential. In fact, we know that the more spiritual disciplines we engage in, and the more time we spend daily in those disciplines, the more we enhance different areas of the brain making for more balanced, self-regulated individuals. By increasing our prayer time and deepening the quality of prayer, our students may show improved performance in their academic pursuits and development of social and critical thinking skills. The more we learn about neurotheology, the more we realize that God has truly designed our brains to be in communion with Him for optimal function.
I know how easy it is to fall into the trap of simply taking prayer requests and verbalizing a teacher led prayer during the morning routine or at the start of a bible lesson. Often our prayer time doesn’t even show up in our lesson plans or we may even slack off on our own practice as we simply “run out of time” everyday. Additionally, we may even assume that our students already know how to pray and practice an active prayer life at home, but sadly, that is not often the case. Many of our students may only know about one or two types of prayer and may not feel comfortable self-directing prayer if we have always taken the lead at school.
Therefore, we need to be more intentional about teaching and practicing prayer in a deeper, brain-friendly way, but what does that look like? We know the two younger generations need to understand the “why” behind everything we ask them to do, and an answer such as, “because the Bible tells us to” generally won’t have the desired impact. Instead we must first exude our own excitement over prayer and tie it directly into our love of God and how prayer helps us to develop and grow our faith. If they see the effects in us, they will more likely want to engage in it themselves. Prayer also needs to be a focused, multifaceted process that each student can do independently. Just as memorization alone does not produce a deep understanding of scripture, listing petitions alone is not going to develop the deep prayer practice we want for our students.
We know each of our students are unique and each class likely consists of a variety of spiritual temperaments so ideally we would like to give them the opportunity to engage in a wide variety of prayer and worship practices. Before we can do that, however, we need to give them a strong foundation on which to build their spiritual discipline practice. As prayer is a primary means of moving us along our journey of sanctification, I have used a method of prayer with my students that uses the acronym TRAIL to more easily remember the process:
Thanksgiving– As we enter into our time alone with God we greet Him with gratitude for the blessings He has already bestowed. We reflect on where God is working in our life and what He has done or led us toward. By starting with the practice and the feeling of gratitude, it opens us up and we enter into the other phases less guarded.
Repent– We confess any sinful thoughts, words or deeds and ask for forgiveness. This allows us to continue in prayer with a penitent and open heart. The repentance phase also includes simply telling God what we are struggling with in our present circumstances and what we are unable to deal with on our own. The things we may perceive as weaknesses or failures in our own character are actually opportunities to grow. Being honest about our own shortcomings and allowing God to help us is a very effective means of growing in Christ. We cannot increase in faith if we refuse to admit we need HIm.
Ask– Request God’s help with what we have confessed and any other petitions that might be important. Give ourselves a little time here to see what the Spirit may lay on our hearts to pray for. We may ask for God’s intercession in the lives of those we love and care for, or pray for our classmates or larger issues going on in the world. In this phase we work toward bringing these petitions to God, not with anger, fear or frustration, but with a trusting heart. This becomes easier the more God does His work in us.
Invite– This is where we intentionally submit our own will to God’s will and invite Him to lead us along our journey. Our faith, obedience, and other fruit are not something that we can generate ourselves but are a byproduct of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. The more we invite Him, the less we resist. The Holy Spirit can change our very character if we are willing to let go of what is holding us back. We want to offer ourselves in servanthood to whatever God’s will is for our lives.
Listen– Finally, just sit in a place of silence and be open to what God may be leading us toward. This can also be just a time of sitting in the presence of God now that we have invited Him to join us. This phase can often feel awkward at first, especially if one is not naturally contemplative so it can be as short or as long as the Spirit leads it to be. Often, as one grows in the use of this form of prayer the listening phase becomes welcome for longer periods of time.
This whole process of prayer is generally more time consuming than what is typically done in school, however, if we invest the time in quality prayer practice we may find we waste less time throughout the day on “junk” behaviors and inattentiveness. TRAIL can be done a number of ways and I encourage each educator and their classes to experiment with what works best for them and adapt it for different age ranges if needed. In my class I often softly spoke the reminders for each phase and left silent time after each prompt. I would then encourage the use of a prayer journal or sketch paper to let my students have time for reflection after the prayer time ended. Those reflections then often served as the basis for our community circle time to build our class relationships, servant leadership and social skills. I would love to know if anyone chooses to implement this in their own classroom. Feel free to share on our Facebook page what your own experience was like and any creative twists the Spirit may have inspired!
