Read Take some time in advance to

read and consider the Bible

Study questions and come

up with personal examples to

encourage discussion.

WatchMake sure everyone can see

the screen and the audio is at a

comfortable level.

PrintBefore class, make enough

copies of this session’s handout

for your entire group. (The

handouts came with your

download.)

Note: For more detailed information, please see the How to Use This Leader’s Guide document.

SESSION 1:

PURPOSE OF PRAYER

Quick Start

S E S S I O N 1 : P U R P O S E O F P R AY E R 2

Open

Leader: Choose three students to serve as actors from your group. Each one will play a short made-up

scene, requiring more imagination than acting skill. (Still, very shy people might have trouble with it.)

Send them out of the room, each one with an explanation card describing what role they’ll be playing.

Explanation Card for Actor 1

You need to borrow $100 for something important. You have a 7-year-old brother or sister with a

very large piggy bank. Ask this kid to lend you the money.

Explanation Card for Actor 2

You were caught red-handed with rolls of toilet paper, shaving cream, and silly string in front of a

neighbor’s house that was vandalized, and now you’re in court. Explain to the judge why you should be

set free.

Explanation Card for Actor 3

Pay a compliment to a classmate of the opposite sex who generally has rather low self-esteem.

While the Actors are out of earshot, reading those cards, explain to everyone else what’s going on.

Each of these people will come in with something to say. They will think they’re speaking to one sort of

person, but you’ll know that they’re really talking to someone else.

Setup of the room:

Have each actor stand in front of the room. Select a fourth person from the group, who only needs to

listen. This person should sit a little bit in front of everyone else, back to the audience, facing the actor.

Put a sign on this person’s back—visible to everyone except the actor—saying who he or she really is.

Sign for Actor 1: BANK MANAGER

Sign for Actor 2: BEST FRIEND

Sign for Actor 3: SCHOOL PRINCIPAL

Keep Actors 2 & 3 out of the room until their scenes. After each actor plays their role, reveal who the real

listener is to everyone. Ask the group, “How do you think that person (bank manager, friend, principal)

would respond to the actor’s statement?” But don’t get too deep into discussion until all the scenes are

done. Proceed with the scenes for actor 2 and actor 3, then dig a bit deeper.

Do we tend to talk differently to different types of people? How? Why?

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Today we’re starting a series about prayer. And so we’ll be thinking about how we talk to God. Is he

a judge, or our best friend, or both? Should we be formal with him, or informal, or both? Should we

demand things from him, beg for them, or just ask?

We’ll be talking about all of these things as we go on through the lesson. Now let’s watch the video.

ViewWatch Session 1: Purpose of Prayer (20 minutes)

ReViewIn that last story, Tyler talked about his family and how his mom and dad would pray with the kids. Do

you have any sort of prayer tradition in your family? Do you say grace before meals? Bedtime prayers?

Family devotions?

Leader: Be sure not to judge the answers you get. You’re not evaluating how well the families pray. It’s

just that different families do different things. If you have students from non-Christian homes, they might

have very different prayer traditions, or none at all. Be ready to share your own family’s practices, and be

honest about the struggles of maintaining a family tradition.

Has your family prayer tradition changed as you’ve grown older? How?

Sometimes it’s hard to keep kids’ attention at certain ages. In some families, everyone’s going in different

directions, so it’s hard to get them all together for any tradition. And some changes aren’t bad. As you

grow up, it’s important for you to develop your own traditions—pray because you want to connect with

God, not just because you’re supposed to.

In Tyler’s case, there was a family crisis—his dad had cancer—and prayer didn’t seem to “work.” Does

that make it harder to pray, when you don’t get what you pray for?

Leader: This is an issue we’ll be dealing with for the full four sessions of this series. You don’t need to

answer everything right now.

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Francis Chan said prayer is sometimes like “throwing words up in the air.” What did he mean by that?

Does that kind of prayer do any good?

Imagine that your best friend comes over and, instead of having a real conversation, you say [do this

very fast, in a mechanical monotone voice] “My friend, who art next door, it’s good to see thee. Give me

this day the five bucks you owe me, and lead me not into temptation. Amen.” That friendship might not

last very long!

So why would we talk with God like that?

Prayer is not a magic spell. It’s not about uttering some incantation just the right way, so your wish

comes true. It’s a conversation within a meaningful relationship.

Earlier in the video we met Olivia, who talked about a time in her life when she didn’t pray much at

all—except to blame God for her parents’ divorce. Do you know people like that, who only have a

negative view of God? What can you say to them?

There’s no right answer here, and that’s part of the answer. God is not a computer that you program to

do certain things. He’s a person who wants a relationship with us.

Olivia discovered this when she went to a church. Here’s what she said:

Before I started going to church, I didn’t realize…that I could pray to someone about [my

experiences that I was going through], that he could actually help me. When I started going to church, I

realized that I could talk to him. He could help me through every single day. The past experiences that I

had gone through, I didn’t have to go through it alone.

What changed for her? What was different about her attitude?

Later Olivia added, “Whenever I pray to him, I pray that he’ll move in his own way.”

That’s an important idea. She now understands God as a real person who cares about the details of her

life—but he’s not some cosmic butler, bringing her everything she demands. He will move “in his own

way.”

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In the first interview in the video, Jonathan talked about praying in front of his Muslim friends. They

were fascinated, and they asked him what prayer meant to him. How would you answer that? What

does prayer mean to you?

Leader: There are many good answers to this question. Encourage creative thinking here, not just getting

it correct.

When we started today, we had some fun with the different ways we talk to friends, parents, little kids,

authority figures, etc. So who is God to you, and how might that affect how you talk with him?

The Bible does speak of the Lord as a Judge, but also as a Friend. He is our Heavenly Father—both

loving us and sometimes disciplining us. God is also described as having a mother’s compassion for us.

God is also a Teacher, a Helper, a Healer. He specifically asks us to bring our requests to him. He is the

awesome Creator of the Universe, but he is also the Comforter who walks alongside us. So we praise him

and thank him and bow before him in utter humility, but we can also just tell him how our day is going…

because he cares.

Bible JourneyTurn to Romans 8:12. Here we find an important clarification about God’s relationship with us. Would

someone read verses 12–16?

How do these verses describe our relationship with God? (We are children of God. We’ve been adopted

into his family.)

In many places, Paul identifies himself as a “servant” or “slave” of God—but from this passage we know

we are his children too.

If we were only slaves or servants of God and not his children, what attitude would we have toward

him (according to verse 15)? (Fear. We would be anxious to please him, and afraid not to.)

As God’s children, what prayer do we pray? (“Abba, Father.”)

Do you know what Abba means? (It also means Father, but in a very tender, family way. We might

translate it Daddy.)

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How could this affect the way we pray? What sort of attitude should we have in prayer?

[*For the following example, use a student who has a father others know and like.]

Imagine if Joe* went home and said to his father, “Good day, Mr. Smith.* I hope everything is to your

liking.” That’s not right at all! He says, “Hey, Dad. Good to see you.” Joe’s* not just a servant; he’s in the

family. There’s a relationship there, and that comes through in the way they talk.

Does this mean Joe* doesn’t respect his father? Not at all. There’s respect, but there’s also love. And

that’s the way it is with God. He is amazing, awesome, Creator, Savior, and all that, and we have the

utmost respect for him. But for those of us who trust him, he has brought us into his family, and so we

can speak to him with tender love. Abba, Father, “Daddy.”

According to verse 16, what does the Spirit do for us?

Apparently we often forget who our Father is. God is so great, and we are so puny, that we start

cowering in fear. But God’s Spirit gets inside us, whispering into our very souls the truth that God has

adopted us, that we are part of the family, that we are his children.

Look ahead at verses 26–27. Would someone read those?

What does this tell us about prayer?

We don’t know what to pray for. That’s a very interesting thought. We are so weak, compared to the

greatness of God, that we don’t even know what to ask for.

What does God’s Spirit do for us?

The Spirit helps us by sort of translating our prayers into “wordless groans” that are brought before the

Father. He “intercedes” for us, making a connection there.

This is where everything starts to make sense. It’s silly for us to tell God what to do. He’s the Creator of

the Universe and we’re not. But God still cares how we feel, because we’re in his family, he loves us. So

the Spirit takes our prayers and transforms them into something the Father can work with.

Remember, in the video, how Tyler was praying for his father’s healing, and Olivia was upset about her

parents splitting up. They prayed for specific things that didn’t happen. Does that mean God doesn’t

S E S S I O N 1 : P U R P O S E O F P R AY E R 7

care? Not at all. Olivia came to the point where she said, “Whenever I pray to him, I pray that he’ll move

in his own way.” And that’s what the Spirit does for us, bringing our desires before the Father and

translating them “in accordance with the will of God.”

Does this mean we shouldn’t ask God for what we want? On the contrary. God wants us to bring our

requests to him, but he also wants us to care about what he wants. This is how Jesus prayed in the

Garden of Gethsemane. “Please let this cup—this suffering, this death—pass me by, but not what I want,

what you want.”

All along we’ve been saying that prayer isn’t a magic spell to make things happen if you say the right

words. It’s communication within a relationship. We grow closer to God when we share the desires of our

hearts.

Scripture Lab

Leader: Distribute the Pray as You Go handout (example handout on pages 10–11). Break into groups

of 4 or 5.

We’ve been talking about what prayer is and what it isn’t. It’s not a magic spell. We don’t order God

around. But the Spirit helps us tell God how we feel. One place where we see this playing out is in the

Psalms. You can think about the book of Psalms like 150 different song lyrics. And most of them are

prayers. David wrote many of the Psalms, but there were other authors too. Together, they show us a

wide range of examples of what prayer can be.

Here’s the assignment for your group: I’m going to give each group a number. Start with that psalm and

evaluate it as a prayer. Maybe it’s not really a prayer—then skip it and move on to the next psalm. But

if it is a prayer, what kind of prayer is it? What was the situation? What was the psalmist feeling? What

was the psalmist saying to God? Is there a key verse that sort of sums up the nature of this psalm? The

handout has questions that can prompt you.

As you start going through the Psalms, can you find three different types of prayers? There are psalms

of praise, of complaint, of commitment, of confession, of thanksgiving, and many others. Some of these

categories are listed on the handout, but you may have other descriptions for what you find. Work

together with your group, flipping through the pages to find three psalms that are substantially different

as prayers, that give you a good idea of the various kinds of prayers we can pray.

S E S S I O N 1 : P U R P O S E O F P R AY E R 8

Leader: The starting numbers just ensure that there’s a broad distribution throughout Psalms. If you have

five small groups, start them at 1, 31, 61, 91, 121. Adapt as necessary. It may be helpful for you to lead them

through one psalm as a big group before you split up.

Give them 8-10 minutes on this. If some groups finish early, challenge them to find a fourth or fifth type

of psalm.

Then draw the small groups back together to report on their findings. Rather than going group by group,

it’s best to start with some of the frequent types of psalms…

Did anyone find something you would call a Cry for Help? Tell us about it.

Did your group find any psalms of Praise? What were they about?

What about psalms of Complaint? We don’t normally think of complaining to God as a prayer, but it’s

there. Where did you find it?

Are there other types of psalm-prayers you found that we haven’t mentioned yet? What did you

discover about them?

It’s amazing to see the wide range of prayers in the Psalms. Some are very inspiring, but others are

kind of troubling. Sometimes we think we must always pray a certain way, with a certain attitude and

a certain posture. We try to say very spiritual-sounding things, because that’s what prayer is, right?

Spiritual stuff.

But if prayer is heart-to-heart communication with someone who has adopted us into his family, then we

can let it all out—good stuff, bad stuff, ugly stuff, praises but also complaints, cries and questions.

As you look over the handout, and as you think about the psalms you read, is there a particular kind of

psalm that can serve as a model for you? Are you feeling thankful now, or do you need to cry out for

help? Do you want to praise God right now or tell him what he’s doing wrong? Do you want to quiet

down and listen to him, or do you want to commit yourself to him? It’s all in there, and it can all be part

of your prayer life.

But let me encourage you to make a note of at least one psalm that you can come back to later—as you

spend some personal time with God. You might read through the psalm a few verses at a time, and then

tell God honestly how you feel.

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Last WordIn closing, turn to 1 Thessalonians 5:17. This is a small verse that tells us volumes about prayer. Would

someone read that?

What are we supposed to do? (Pray.)

When are we supposed to do it? (Always or without ceasing.)

Is that really possible? Can you always be praying? Like when you’re riding a bike or driving? When

you’re doing your homework or playing basketball?

You might want to think about it like this. Have you seen those cop shows on TV where all the agents

have ear buds and they’re communicating with each other, and with headquarters? They’re rushing into

a gunfight, and the computer expert is in their ear, saying, “Watch out for the explosives on your right.”

Or whatever.

They’re connected. They’re talking and listening all the time as they go about their work. They’re getting

guidance and responding to it.

That’s what we do when we “pray continually.” We don’t need ear buds, because we have the Spirit

in us—but the line is always open. We don’t have to put on our special prayer voice, or kneel down,

or fold our hands and close our eyes—especially when we’re driving. We just need to connect with

God no matter what else is going on. We can tell him when we’re happy or sad, when we need help

or encouragement. We go through our lives with him. We just need to keep that line of

communication open.

Handout

PRAY AS YOU GO

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From your group’s assigned starting psalm, flip through the psalms and find at least three different types

of prayers. Start with the list here, but feel free to make up your own category if your psalm doesn’t fit

one of these..

Types of psalm/prayers

Cry for help

Praise

Complaint

Commitment/Trust

Love note

Glory of creation

Starting Psalm # __________________

Psalm # __________________

First Type ______________________________________________________

What was the psalmist feeling?

What can you find (or guess) about the psalmist’s situation?

What verse best expresses what type of psalm this is? _______________________

Thanks for deliverance

Confession

Humility

National issues

Expression of joy

Handout

PRAY AS YOU GO

S E S S I O N 1 : P U R P O S E O F P R AY E R 1 1

Psalm # __________________

Second Type ______________________________________________________

What was the psalmist feeling?

What can you find (or guess) about the psalmist’s situation?

What verse best expresses what type of psalm this is? _______________________

Psalm # __________________

Third Type ______________________________________________________

What was the psalmist feeling?

What can you find (or guess) about the psalmist’s situation?

What verse best expresses what type of psalm this is? _______________________