1st Thessalonians 5:16-18

Friday:	Prayer Warrior
Bible Lesson:	We should be praying; prayer is effective. (Peter in Prison)
Memory Verse:	1st Thessalonians 5:16-18, Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Introduction: [needed]

[needed]

Explanation: 1^st Thessalonians 5:16-18

[Show the verse and read it aloud.]

When the verse says "pray continually", what does continually mean? Continually means all the time, right? Does that mean you never do anything else? That you never eat, or sleep, or do your homework, because you're too busy praying? (No.) When we say that we do something all the time, does that mean that we never take a break from doing it? If you tell your friend that your family had pizza for supper last night, and he says, "Oh, my family has pizza all the time", does he mean that they never stop eating pizza to do anything else? (No.) So what does it mean? He means that having pizza for supper isn't unusual. It's a normal thing that they do all the time.

What about if Joey says to his friend Noah, "Hey, my dad got tickets! We're going to see the Cleveland Indians on Friday night!" What if Noah says, "Yeah, we have season tickets, so we go to the games all the time". Does that mean that Noah has never missed a game? Does it mean that he's there every day, all day long? No. It means that going to the games isn't something unusual. He's done it before. It's a normal part of his life.

So in the verse, praying should be a normal everyday part of our life, not something unusual that we only do once in a while.

Game: Voice Contenst

Divide the children into two groups by their teams (red and blue). Have a competition to see which team can say the verse in the deepest, strongest, loudest, manliest voices. Go back and forth between the teams, having them work on the deepness of their voices, then the strength of their voices, then the loudness, and finally the manliness of the voices. Then put all four together. Award points to the team that tries hardest and does best.

Then have another contest to see which team can say the verse in the highest, softest, most quiet, most ladylike voices. Go back and forth between the two teams, having them concentrate on first the highest pitch of their voices, then on the softest quality, then on whispering most quietly, then on the ladylike quality of their voices. Then put all four together. Award points to the team that tries hardest and does best.

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.