When asking adults to serve in kids ministry on Sunday mornings, the most common reason I’ve been given for not serving is that they don’t want to miss out on the personal connections with other adult class members. My initial response was to assure them that they would still be included in their adult class fellowships. Surprisingly, people often responded that the thing they would miss most from their adult class was the prayer time.

I’ve seen adult classes successfully bridge that gap in one or more of the following ways:

• Create a Missionary Prayer Board. Each adult class posts pictures of those who would be a part of the group if they weren’t serving in preschool or children’s ministry. Adult class members agree to pray for a specific leader pictured on the board, committing to make regular contact with the leader, asking for specific prayer needs. Those could be personal prayer needs or needs specific to the children in their class and their families.
• Provide a list of prayer needs. A prayer coordinator from the adult class records weekly prayer requests from adult class members and shares the list with those serving outside the class. This approach allows for a mutual partnership where the preschool/children’s leaders commit to pray for the adult Bible Study members.
• Send monthly prayer cards. Members of the adult class sign prayer cards that are sent monthly to members in service.

As preschool and children’s leaders experience the joy of partnering with others in prayer, they can begin to teach out of the overflow by encouraging parents of the kids in their class to become prayer partners with their children. Leaders can offer simple ideas to parents of how they can begin to make prayer a regular part of each day. Parents can then progress to asking the child if there is anything specific they would like for them to pray about.  With this kind of partnership, preschool and children’s teachers are helping parents to be the spiritual leaders that God has called them to be.

Written by Vicki Hulsey, Childhood Education Specialist, Tennessee Baptist Mission Board