LIFE SKILL // PRAYER
[/av_textblock] [av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=” mobile_display=”] [av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=” admin_preview_bg=”] Life Launch is a prayer-based program. Mentors should be praying for and with their mentees.
Of course, we never want to force our view points as Christians on others or make our mentees feel unnecessarily uncomfortable. However, allowing your mentee to know that you pray for them and are willing to pray with them can be a great first step in their spiritual development. We believe that our God listens to our prayers, covets our prayers, and answers our prayers. When we pray, we are humbling ourselves to the fact that we cannot control our lives and that we do not have the final say with how everything plays out. And when God’s people practice the liturgy of prayer, we begin to see that God cares about us, that he is present with us, and that Jesus lives to intercede for us. Prayer helps our blind eyes see that our Father is at work protecting, providing, and loving us at every step in our lives. So, this is what we want to reveal to our Life Launch youth. We want them to see how God is present in their lives. The best way to do that is to ask have your youth share what they need prayer for, persist in that prayer and watch and see what God does. At Stand in the Gap we call these “God Sightings”. I know it may be a little cheesy, but it’s very true and very helpful.
Scenario: Practice praying with your youth (or at least for your youth).
Help the youth identify why Christians pray and what they think they need prayer for.
As mentors you can begin to ask the mentee these questions:
- “Hey (mentee) is it ok if we pray for you? If you don’t want to pray with us that’s totally fine, but as your mentors we want to be able to have things that we can pray for you about.”
- “What keeps you up at night?”
- “What are you most frustrated with right now?”
- “Ya know there are a lot of things that I (as your mentor) worry about all the time, and frankly that I am afraid of. Things like losing my job, or not being able to pay my bills or losing someone in my family. What are you most afraid of? Thats what we want to pray for you about.”
Remember that asking good questions is crucial to helping your mentee mentally engage with you, and begin the process of thinking about their needs and how to address them. Our hope is, that as you pray with and for your mentee that the whole team begins to see how God is at work.
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