FHE Idea - Family Prayer

PROPHETS HAVE TOLD US TO HAVE FAMILY PRAYER

Choose a child to come up and tell them we are sending them out in the wilderness where it is really cold and they have snow. Tell them we care about them so much that we want to make sure they are really warm--put on them snow hat and parkas, mitten, scarves, etc. Then have one more child come up, and tell him that we are going to send him too, but that we are not going to give him any warm clothes.

Summarize quote from talk in 2001 February, Ensign by Kent Rappleye " Wise parents will recognize the protective power of regular family prayer. President Kimball taught: "No mother would carelessly send her little children forth to school on a wintry morning without warm clothes to protect against the snow and rain and cold. But there are numerous fathers and mothers who send their children to school without the protective covering available to them through prayer--a protection against exposure to unknown hazards, evil people, and base temptations."

Ask the children to name things we can pray for in family prayer: safety, have the spirit with them to make good decisions, family harmony, desire to study the scriptures, patient with brother or sister, keeping family rules, go on missions, get married in the temple, etc.

Hold up some medicine (wrapped with a label that says "Family Prayer") and tell the kids that you know a kind of medicine that President Hinkley says the our whole society need--that medicine is Family Prayer. Quote from 1991 February, Ensign talk by President Hinkley. "I submit that a return to the old pattern of prayer, family prayer in the homes of the people, is one of the basic medications that would check the dread disease that is eroding the character of our society. We could not expect a miracle in a day, but in a generation we would have a miracle."

For older children, you could also have them do a scripture chase for 3 Nephi 18:21 Explain the setting--where Christ was on Earth teaching the Nephites. "Pray in your families unto the Father, always in my name, that your wives and your children may be blessed." We didn't even need a prophet to tell us to have family prayer, because Christ himself to us to pray in our families.

Note: We have been having family prayer and scripture study everyday for about 4.5 years now and our family has become a lot stronger. Before that we were "hit and miss" but then we made a decision that we could not afford to deprive our children or family of this principle. I challenge everyone to pray as a family daily and to study the scriptures daily as well.