Prayer Journaling? With kids?
Yesss.
Tell me you’ve been there, Mama. You want to pray. You know you should. But it’s feeling dull or rote. Empty.
How do we get back to that place where prayer is invigorating, inspiring, and powerful? How do our kids?
It’s up to us to revive our prayer lives. To rekindle that flame. To make it fresh again. And to guide our kids when they’re feeling the same.
And we can.
Get ready for your prayer life to burst with new color!
Prayer Journaling as an Offering
Prayer Journaling isn’t just about pretty paper and scalloped scissors. While it’s often seen as a practice for women, the truth is that prayer journaling is for everyone—including men and kids. Rooted in age-old traditions of meditation and prayer through writing, it’s a way to slow down, reflect, and let hidden things come to light.
And it makes a beautiful offering to God. Just as Old Testament heroes chose perfect stones for altars of offering—or perfect lambs without blemish—we’re creating something beautiful and intentional to offer today. We’re taking time to mindful as we deepen our devotion. Prayer journaling inspires wonder and humility. It strengthens us–and dare I say our prayers.
Prayer Journaling Through the Ages
I’m loving Gary Neal Hansen’s book Kneeling with Giants. Gary is a church historian and former seminary professor of prayer practices. His website offers a whole library of children’s messages on an abundance of Bible verses. His website even offers a free eBook with subscription: Love Your Bible: Finding Your Way to the Presence of God with a 12th Century Monk.
In Kneeling with Giants, Gary dedicates an entire chapter to historical prayer practices—especially of the Puritans—that can inspire modern journaling.
They include:
- Remembrance: Reflecting on God’s faithfulness, from how He brought you to faith, to answered prayers, to your sanctification process.
- Mourning: Writing prayers of mourning for the unsaved and for sins (yours and others’).
- Keeping the Fire Alive: Writing whatever helps you stoke that fire. For me, it’s not only the remembrances of God’s hand in my life but in the lives of others—especially when that includes miracles.
- Patience Under Affliction: Journal about how you’re responding to challenges and what’s being revealed in you during difficult times. Are you staying true to all God calls us to?
- The Practice of Examen: Examine your life compared to the 10 Commandments. Are you living out biblical instructions? Where are you wrestling?
Creating Your Own Prayer Journal
This is the fun part! And I bet your kids will agree.
First Things First: Sections for Your Journal
If I’ve learned anything from my 15 years of prayer journaling, it’s this: Start by thinking about what sections should be included. Your kids probably won’t want to think ahead about this. Let them go to town. But here’s a hint: Leaving several blank pages between each section allows you forgiveness if you need to adjust.
Here are some ideas for sections:
- Dedication Page: Open with a dedication to God, establishing your intentions for your offering.
- Family and Friends: Include a section for loved ones, leaders, or anyone God has laid on your heart. You can even add photos to personalize it. Our prayer journal kit below offers Polaroid frame and many other paper decorations. Download and print as many as you need!
I even include a two-page spread for our weekly Family Meetings in my prayer journal. I list all our questions and put a pocket on the second page and use index cards to record the upcoming week’s important family prayers, goals, ways we’ll serve, and even meals we’ll eat. My prayer journal is evolving into a whole life journal!
- Reflections and Remembrances: Record the ways you’ve seen God’s hand in your life—answered prayers, divine interventions, and significant moments.
- Listening Prayer: Leave space for listening prayer. Write where God is leading and speaking—any answers, direction, or insights he’s giving you. I like to keep any habit trackers and calendars here to hold myself accountable to following God’s lead. (Both are included in our Prayer Journal kit!)
- Psalms and Lyrical Prayers: Maybe you’re someone who needs space to pour out your emotions—maybe even refined to a poetic form like the Psalms.
- Ways and Words to Pray: Explore the main types of prayer—adoration, confession, thanksgiving, intercession, and supplication.
- Puritan Practices: Include some reflections on the practices mentioned earlier, such as patience under affliction or keeping your faith alive.
Supplies You’ll Need for Prayer Journaling with Kids
Starting a prayer journal doesn’t require hard-to-find or expensive materials. Not even when kids are involved.
Here’s a simple list:
- Notebook: Choose a spiral-bound that lays flat for easy writing. Decide whether or not you want lined pages.
- Thick Pages: Opt for pages that can hold glue and weight if you’re adding decorations.
- Decorative Papers: Start with four coordinating papers to create a cohesive look. 12×12 is a nice big size and will help you cover more ground with a cohesive look. Kids work magic with simple colored construction paper, too.
- Washi Tape: Washi tape is an easy way for kids to go wild with color. And it requires no glue. Just be sure your tape is sticky enough.
- Glue Stick: The purple is great for kids to see where they’re putting it. But the white holds much better and easier without creating wet waves underneath. Choose based on your needs.
- Paperclips and Tabs: You can use a variety of colors to create section markers, allowing you to find and flip to sections easily.
- Index Cards: A variety of colored index cards are perfect in pockets on pages
- An Envelope: I like to glue in an envelope for leaving the prayers I find too hard to pray. I have one in there I’ve left at the feet of Jesus. He knows it’s there. I give it a nod each time I see it, lifting it up again. Maybe you’ve got one, too.
- Legal pad: I bulldog clip a pastel legal pad into the back cover. I keep all my notes there—anything temporary I need to scribble down: Prayers for others. Anything I don’t want penned into my journal permanently. It’s a must for keeping my journal clean.
Crafting Tips for Prayer Journaling with Kids
- Tear and Layer: Rip your 12×12 decorative papers to create textured edges. Decide whether you want the white edges to show. Tearing in one direction will give you that white edge. Tearing in the other will hide it. The white looks really pretty on an off-white page.
- Create Pockets and Tags: After you’ve used your 12×12 to decorate some page margins, use the paper to make pockets, note cards, and tags.
- Gluing: Outline the back of your paper shapes for neat adhesion. You don’t need to completely cover the back of your shapes with glue.
- Photos: Photos are thick and stiff. You may need more than glue stick to adhere them. Consider your colored paperclips or some adhesive photo corners.
- Calligraphy: This is definitely optional and one I don’t use. But I do use my best handwriting—sometimes uniquely creative—for penning down favorite scripture verses and quotes. After all, if this is a modern-day offering, I want it to be as spotless as I can meaningfully make it.
The Power of Prayer Journaling with Kids
We know how powerful prayer can be. The prayers we weave into the fabric of our lives? They withstand fire.
Revelation 5 and 8 tell us our prayers are “incense” in the angel’s golden censer rising up before God at his throne. The angel loads the censer with fire from the altar and hurls it down, ushering in the new heaven and new earth.
That’s power.
And to get you started, we’ve put together a free Prayer Journal starter kit.
Enjoy!
And remember: No matter what territory you’re navigating, you can cultivate their seeds of faith. Simply. And for true legacy.
