Lunchtime Club

I've just come back from the Year 4 lunchtime club. The club has only been up and running 3 weeks because of my health etc but already the kids are responding. There's lots of children in this group that we had in the year 3 lunch club last year and they're a lively fun bunch. I've been using the Scripture Union lunchtime club material and I'm quite impressed with it, the kids like it and I've just adapted it slightly so there's more application to the children's lives. Today we did about Blind Bart and how he had to have the faith that Jesus would heal him. At the end we prayed as always but instead of me just saying a quick prayer I got the kids in a circle and gave them the option of praying, 75% of them did! Was so exciting to see! Some of them were a sentence, others longer, some people prayed in their heads and then said Amen so we could all join in, others simply passed. I'm never quite sure when to introduce this into groups, particularly groups that are made up of non-churched kids. On one hand you can't expect children to pray when they have no relationship with God, it's like asking people to sing songs about loving God when they have no concept of God but on the other hand a lot of what children learn is through imitation. If a child grasps the fact that prayer is conversation with God and that it isn't just restricted to club but can happen anywhere at anytime and has the confidence to use it then surely they will grow in relationship with God as He communicates back with them. The danger of this is the hurt or disappointment that can occur if a child doesn't see their prayers answered or in an extreme case someone they've been praying for dies and God doesn't heal them. I'm not sure I have the answers on how to avoid this hurt but I do trust that God looks after His children. It's easier if the child in question is someone who you see once a week and can continue to nurture and disciple. I think a big part of it is being there to answer questions. Tomorrow is the Year 5/6 lunchtime club and I'm going to see if I can encourage them to do the same, they're a totally different bunch and a lot of them we didn't have last year so there's no guarantees that they'll respond in the same way. It's all good stuff!