Praying for our Students

One of the great opportunities of working with students is to pray for them. Wait! This is NOT a guilt post. Honest.

For so many of us the first emotion that wells up when we start talking about prayer is guilt. That’s only because we actually believe prayer matters. We’re convinced that James 5:16 is true! It’s our belief in prayer that causes us to feel regretful when we realize that we don’t pray as much as we think we should.

But guilt doesn’t actually help very much. Guilt is a powerful emotion and terrible motivator. We tend to avoid the things we feel guilty about instead of engaging with them. So let’s set the guilt aside for a minute and think about how we might build a habit of praying just a little bit for each of the students in our groups (or small groups).

One thing that might help is to have a list with all of the students on it and at least five descriptors for each of them. These descriptors might include things like one strength of theirs, one struggle (if we know one), one interest, one good friend, one thing I can pray for. For example:

Mike Jones:
• Good at math
• Maybe trouble with self-control
• Loves paint ball
• Good friends with Jack
• Mom has been sick for a while

The first four items on the list are not necessarily things you’ll pray about, but making the list forces us to think about Mike and his world and who he is. Figuring them out will help to motivate us to notice those things about our students from week to week. And the more we know them, the more we’ll tend to care about and pray for them.

The list is meant to be dynamic. You might add to it as you get to know your students better (or as they change over time). Keeping the list might even provoke us to ask our students (in person or via text, email, Facebook, etc.), “how can I pray for you this week?”

One other helpful idea: Identify one Scripture each week that you can pray for another person (e.g., Eph. 1:18)—and pray it for all of your students by name on the way to or from your group time (or when you get home). It doesn’t take long, but it can be powerful and effective.

You don’t have to be a great teacher or leader or even a very cool person to make a huge impact on your students by being intentional about praying for them.

Of course, many of you already have an effective approach to praying for your students. If so, feel free to share what works for you in the comments.