Sharing Time - Pray in your families - August - Week 1 Lesson on Family Prayer

Lesson 1 this month is about Family Prayer. I love this topic, and all the beautiful teachings from the Savior and the Lord, taught at General Conference and in the scriptures. The tough part of this lesson is to remember to focus on the "family" aspect of prayer, and not on prayer itself. I talked about ways to incorporate this lesson into singing time but I also found a great lesson plan from Sharing Time Idea #1 in the July 2009 Friend, called "Our Family Will Be Strong." I cut out pieces of cardboard, then used a hole punch and yarn, to create a word necklace for each word of the sentence "Family prayer will strengthen my family." Unscrambling that word, and looking up 3 Nephi 18:21, will engage the children, before leading them into a group discussion where I hope and plan to encourage a lot of participation.

I also love the aspect of family prayer that this is a special opportunity to be the mouth piece for your family to Lord. The church provides a great cartoon that teaches this, that I would like to print out for the children to take home. You can find it here.

I also feel I am so much better prepared to teach this lesson because I read this Family Home Evening guide, particularly the story about Sue and Tim.

Also, do yourself a favor and read this talk from Elder John E. Groberg. I loved his books about his mission. In this talk, he talks about his mission and how his family's prayers sustained him in a distant land. I love that he points out that whether single or married, we are part o some family, somewhere, in some way, and that we can share our love for our family by having them know that we are praying for them.