How do you talk to God?
Jesus’ friends watched him pray and asked him to teach them. He told them not to pray to be seen, to keep it simple, and gave them the words Christians still say today: Our Father in heaven. We follow Matthew 6, with the request from Luke 11.
Jesus’ friends watched him pray and asked him to teach them. He told them not to pray to be seen, to keep it simple, and gave them the words Christians still say today: Our Father in heaven. We follow Matthew 6, with the request from Luke 11.
About 7 minutes: 4 choices and 2 ways-of-knowing stops. Kids play one of Jesus’ friends learning to pray, then put the prayer’s lines to work: daily bread, and forgiving someone. The words of the prayer are marked “Words from the Bible.”
Ages 5–11
Because Jesus gave them, and because they cover everything: who God is, what we need, what we’ve done, what we’re afraid of. You can say: the words are a path. Sometimes you walk it without thinking, and that’s okay; it still gets you there.
Matthew 6:5–15, in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount; Luke 11:1–4 has a shorter version and adds that the disciples asked, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus says not to pray to be seen or to babble on, then gives the prayer: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come, your will be done; give us this day our daily bread; forgive us as we forgive; lead us not into temptation, deliver us from evil. The closing line many churches add (“For yours is the kingdom…”) isn’t in the oldest copies of Matthew. Our story stops at the forgiveness line and the “your Father knows” promise.