Eagle Brook Church Blog

The School of Prayer

By far, Jesus’ best-known prayer—what we formally call The Lord’s Prayer—was offered in response to a request His followers made, “Lord, teach us to pray.”

At some point in our faith experience, all of us will make a similar request, “teach me to pray.” This week our church is in the school of prayer as part of our Awaken 40-day spiritual growth experience.

How does a follower of Christ learn to pray? More importantly, how can those who are farther along in their walk with Christ teach others to pray?

When I was planting a multi-site church in Arizona, I stumbled upon three effective tools to teach others how to prayer. It happened one night when a new attender named Johanna showed up at our weeknight church gathering.

“I’ve been looking for a church, and this is the first one I’ve found that doesn’t make me feel like I’m going to hell because I left my former religion.”

Johanna grew up in a works-based, guilt-motivated religious environment. I listened as she spoke.

“This church teaches the Bible…and the people are so nice,” she said.

Johanna is from Holland. She started coming to church just a few weeks prior to our Wednesday evening prayer meeting. On the evening of our conversation, she and I were the only ones who showed up. In the room next to us, a dozen other people from our church were meeting for small group. I asked Johanna why she chose the prayer meeting rather than small group. Her answer startled me.

“Do you remember the little girl that was killed when a car ran over her at the grocery store down the street?” she began.

“Yes,” I said.

“Well, I watched that little girl’s mom weeping and crying at her loss…and I wanted to pray for her…but, I don’t know how to pray. I came tonight so you can teach me how to pray.”

Listen to children pray

How am I going to teach Johanna to pray? I thought as I breathed a prayer for wisdom. Just then, the Lord put it on my heart to invite our other pastor’s two daughters—age 10 and 12—to join us. After all, Jesus said we could gain spiritual insight from the innocent faith of children. I told Johanna that the two girls and I would pray aloud and she was free to listen. Without any prompting, the girls prayed from their hearts. Then, I closed with a prayer of thanks. Johanna sat spellbound.

Pray through passages of the Bible

I thanked the girls and sent them on their way. Then, I helped Johanna find a psalm in the Bible. I asked her to read along and I simply prayed the words of the psalm phrase-by-phrase and verse-by-verse. I concluded with “amen.”

Johanna said, “I can do that!”

“OK, let’s try it together,” I said as we turned to another psalm. “I’ll pray though a verse and then you pray through a verse.”

What a wonderful time we had praying together—the teacher with the student!

When we had concluded praying through the psalm, I affirmed Johanna’s success in praying her first prayer aloud. I then asked if she felt comfortable praying through a psalm by herself.

“I sure would like to try,” she said. We found another psalm.

Johanna prayed one of the most beautiful, heart-felt prayers as a psalm of David shaped her words. She concluded her prayer with “amen,” and smiled like a baby that had just taken her first steps.

Connect with a mentor

Shortly after that evening, I helped Johanna enter into a mentoring relationship with one of our long-time Christ-followers. The new relationship was a wonderful experience for both of them.

Listen to children pray, pray through passages of the Bible and connect with a mentor—three effective tools to use in the school of prayer.