Object lessons are the perfect way to teach kids about complex or hard to understand concepts in the Bible. Jesus almost did the same thing when He taught in parables! Even if something isn’t hard to understand, if someone is a visual learner, using a tangible object can make the concept that much easier to understand and overall, a more memorable way to bring the verse or story to life for kids.
Prayer is a simple, but also complex, topic for kids. It is important to talk about how prayer is an easy thing anyone can do every day. Also, consistently model prayer for kids by praying aloud with your class using language that is simple so kids can learn that prayers don’t need to be elaborate. They should know that their prayers are important and that they don’t have to be an adult to talk to God.
We have put together a list of simple object lessons on prayer you can do using things from around your house. A verse is also provided for reference as well.
1. OBJECT: Cell Phone
VERSE: Matthew 7:7
LESSON: Think of the cell phone as prayer, where have you seen an adult use their cell phone? People can use their cell phones anywhere can’t they? Right, as long as there is reception and it is on, they can use their cell phone anywhere. Just like our cell phones, no matter where you are, no matter what is going on you can always pray. We use cell phones to talk to someone, for directions, for help with a lot of things! You know what is cool about prayer? You can use prayer just like someone uses a cell phone!
If you are lonely and want someone to tell things to, you can talk to God through prayer! If you need directions and don’t know where to go in life you can use prayer just like you’d use a cell phone! Tell God you need help finding the right way to go in life or how to make a decision, or that you love him. You can talk to God about anything!
Just like Jesus says in the verse Matthew 7:7, you have to “ask”. Now, I have a question, when you go to call someone on a cell phone, do you have to ask it to call someone or does it just do it on its own? You have to ask it don’t you?....You do! It’s the same way with God! Just like the verse says “Ask and it shall be given”. Do the same with prayer, ask God for what you need specifically, and trust that if you need it that God will provide it!
2. OBJECT: Sandwich Ingredients (2 pieces of bread, peanut butter, jelly, lettuce, cheese, etc.)
VERSE: Matthew 6:9
LESSON: Does anyone know what the top and bottom of every sandwich looks like? It a piece of bread! On the top and bottom, always! Well today, we are going to make a prayer sandwich! You all get to make your own prayer sandwich. I our verse Jesus says “this is how you should pray” right? So we all start our prayers acknowledging God right? We might say something like “Our Father in Heaven” or “Dear Lord” or “Father God”, but we all acknowledge God at the beginning of our prayers. We also all say the same thing at the end as well don’t we? We all say…. AMEN! So you all get a piece of bread for the top of your sandwich and the bottom of your sandwich because that’s always the same, BUT what’s in the middle of my sandwich might be different than what’s in the middle of your sandwich! I like peanut butter and bananas on my sandwich, but you might want peanut butter and jelly!
This is just like our prayers! What is in the middle of my prayer might be different than what is in the middle of yours and you know what? That’s all ok! God wants us to tell Him all of our prayers, whatever is on our hearts, and we are all different, so all of our prayers will be different! No matter what is in our “prayer sandwich” God wants to hear it!
3. OBJECT: Toothbrush & Toothpaste
VERSE: Mark 1:35
LESSON: Ok, I have here a toothbrush and toothpaste! Does anyone know what this is for? Brushing your teeth! Right! But….why? We brush our teeth with toothpaste to take care of our teeth! It’s sooo good for them, especially in the morning when we wake AND when we go to sleep at night! We can do it any point in the day, but it is so important that at minimum we brush our teeth when we wake up and before we go to bed right?
Well, just like we brush our teeth regularly to take care of them, Jesus encourages us to do something else that is very important regularly too. Jesus shows us that prayer is important to do in the morning, AND at night too. But it doesn’t have to be only during those times. Anytime during the day we can pray more if we want to as well. Praying is good for our minds and our hearts! It helps us to take care of them! It is so important that we make sure and talk to God and pray at minimum when we wake up and when we go to sleep at night! Here’s an idea! You could EVEN pray while you are brushing your teeth!
4. OBJECT: Paper, scissors, tape/glue, pencil/pen/marker/crayon
VERSE: Colossians 4:2
LESSON: (Have an example prayer chain already made with about 5 pieces of paper with things you are thankful for, each written on a different piece of paper on the chain. Have multiple strips of paper already cut out and ready for kids to use each day.)
Just like in our verse it says we need to be thankful when we pray! So I want each of you to write one thing you are thankful for on a piece of paper, and every day when you pray thank God for what you wrote on the papers each day! It might seem like not a big deal to forget, but we are to be thankful when we pray and remember all of the good things that God has done for us! This can be your thankful prayer chain. Just like the verse says to “devote ourselves to prayer” that means to not forget, we can hang this prayer chain up in our house and it will help us to remember to pray AND to be thankful for everything that we put on this chain!
5. OBJECT: Round “O” shaped cereal and 2 bowls
VERSE: Romans 12:12
LESSON: Ok, I need you to try something for me. I’m going to give you 4 minutes and I need you to one by one put all of the pieces from this bowl into the other bowl. Ok, I’m watching the clock and your 4 minutes starts…. NOW! (The idea is that the child must “constantly” without stopping, “persist” and “keep going” at the task to win, and they should be slightly tired!)
Great job! Are you tired?! You were constantly putting those in the bowl to win the game, weren’t you? You couldn’t give up right? You had to keep going! This is just like what our verse is talking about! Think of life as a game, and this verse just gave us a very important rule and/or strategy to win the game of life! Prayer! Prayer is something that we should always do! Never give up! Even when it gets hard, because it helps us, and it is an important part of doing life with Jesus! It is always good and always helpful!
6. OBJECT: Backpack or bag (write or put something on it that says “GOD’S”, and rocks or paper and something to write with
VERSE: Philippians 4:6-7
LESSON: This verse tells to pray about everything and present our requests to God AND to not be anxious. Anxious is kind of a big word. It’s like that feeling when you can’t stop thinking about something you don’t want to do – like take a big test, or play the piano in front of a room full of people. It’s bothering you so much, because you don’t know what’s going to happen. You know what this verse is telling us? It’s telling us to give that God! So we have this backpack here, and it says “God’s” on it, so I need you to write down something that is bothering you that you can’t stop thinking about on the piece of paper that I gave you. You don’t have to show me, we are going to fold it up, then I’m going to pray and when I pause in the prayer, if you want to pray out loud you can, or in your head on your own pray and tell God about what is bothering you. Then when we are done, we are going to put it in this backpack and give it to God, because it’s His now. We aren’t going to be anxious we are going to trust that God has and will take care of what we are worried about!
PRAYER: “Our Father in Heaven, we thank you so much for all that you have given to us! We also want to bring to you some things that are on our minds today, things that are kind of making us anxious and we want to give those things to you……(pause)……..God I ask you to be with each and every one of these prayer requests on our hearts today as we are giving them to you. They are yours and we trust and know that you know more than we do and that you will take care of all that is on our hearts! In Jesus name we pray, AMEN!”
7. OBJECT: Calendar (with holidays and birthdays/celebration days highlighted on it)
VERSE: Ephesians 6:18
LESSON: Go through the calendar with your kids and talk about the word “occasions” and what are occasions to us?! What are some things and/or people in our lives that we can be praying about and for that are on our calendar? We not only have our own occasions, but so do other countries! Do you know what is so awesome about God and His love for us? He wants to hear all of our prayers, everyone’s big and small days are important to Him! So, the prayers about our big days like the ones coming up on our own calendars AND the prayers about the little things too! We are to pray for other people as well, just like the verse says! Do you know of anyone that has a special day that we could add to our calendar and be praying about? (Add someone else’s special day to your calendar even if it’s small so that you can remember to pray for them too, just like the verse says!)
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