Are you looking for a fun activity for kids when it’s raining outside, you have to try a prayer walk for kids! When the weather is nice, I love taking nature walks with the kids, especially when I incorporate a scavenger hunt or nature bingo. I take a similar approach for this prayer walk for kids. Of course, you can do this prayer walk on your own, or you can use my prayer walk journal with resources to guide you along.
No matter how old, kids and family members can benefit from a prayer walk. To make it even easier, I’ve created a prayer walk journal printable that is perfect for children’s ministry, homeschoolers with Christian principles or parents with their kids.
This post is all about how to do a prayer walk for kids!
Here are some things to include in your prayer walk for kids:
- Preparation
- Observations
- Reflections
- Prayer Prompts
- Bible Study
- Prayer Requests
- Extension Activities
- Coloring Pages
- Nature Prayer Walk
- Read a chapter from the children’s bible with each stop
Preparation
Let’s prepare for our prayer walk for kids with prayer time to center ourselves to connect to God.
With my kids, I typically remind them that this is a time for us to be focused. We can open our hearts, our minds, and our ears, but we close our mouths and if we’d like, our eyes.
First, I like to give the kids an opportunity to get their wiggles out. This is especially great for younger children when they can’t get outside as much because of the weather. I will have the students take 5 minutes to do an exercise
- Stretch
- Run in place
- Jumping Jacks
- etc.
Next, ask the students to take a deep breath to recenter themselves. Here, I will begin to lead in a prayer asking for guidance, gratitude, and openness to experience God’s presence.
Observations
Track your observations during your walk through your home or church space.
Write down the date, time, and how you are currently feeling at each stop. How can you express gratitude in this space or with the people you are with?
5 Senses
What do you see? What do you hear? What do you smell? What can you touch? What can you taste? You can also colors, shapes, sizes, behaviors, and any other distinctive features.
Reflections
Here are some bible verses to reflect on during your walk:
Have your students explore their thoughts, observations, and reflections. Have them consider what feelings came up during your walk. Did they feel gratitude, forgiveness, healing, guidance, love, anger, sadness, guilt? Where did their thoughts drift during the prayer walk? Ask what might God be trying to communicate to you?
Did your students experience anything that bothered them? Did they see anything that evoked an emotional response? Did anything surprise them?
Prayer Walk Scavenger Hunt
Create a scavenger hunt of items students may find in the home or classroom space you are doing your prayer walk in. While on the scavenger hunt, ask the students how they can find God in each object they find. God is with us everywhere and in everything. How can we practice creating a connection to God in the everyday objects we interact with?
Bible Study
Reflect on the following bible verses. Write the bible verse and then write down on a sheet of paper how the gospel passage makes you feel. Sit with Jesus’ words and reflect on the ways god works in us, through us, and with us. Dive deeper into the passages to really understand the context of the passage and how it can apply to your life.
Prayer Prompts
Consider the prayer walk with kids prompt ideas to place in your prayer journal! If you have young kids, you may want to just do this exercise out loud instead of with an actual journal. This can be a great way to start conversations with each member of the family and hear how the exercise differentiated with each person.
Prayer Requests
While walking, do you have any prayer requests? Write them down!
Coloring Pages
If you’re doing this prayer walk with young children, they’ll love these coloring pages! Teach them about how to spend quality time with God and how we can use our creative ideas to express our love for God.
Nature Prayer Walk
While I love the option of a prayer walk with kinds indoors for a rainy day, if you have a chance do a nature prayer walk I highly recommend it! Nature prayer walks are a lovely reminder of what a special place our Earth is. Getting fresh air and understanding god’s love through nature is incredible. A bonus exercise is to allow the students to collect items and store them in a resealable bag!
Read a chapter from the children’s bible with each stop. We read this book every night at dinner. It takes major chapters of the bible and breaks them down so the kids can understand. This helps develop their spiritual growth at a young age.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post to help you create a prayer walk for kids!
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