Enjoy a new, web-based resource to encourage families to enjoy fun, easy moments in Scripture-based praying! Forty free prayer guides are available on www.YourHomeAHouseOfPrayer.com.

As a pastor in Birmingham, Alabama whose church in on a journey to becoming a "house of prayer", I knew that the Church needed tools to help families pray together more effectively - especially tools that encourage Scripture-based praying.

The prayer guides are categorized into three sections: Regular Scriptural Passages, Special Family Days, and Special Issues that families face.

Check it out - I hope you'll enjoy it!

The further we go as a church toward becoming a "house of prayer", the more we understand that praying churches stand on the foundation of praying families - and praying families stand on the foundation of praying individuals.

It's easy to find resources for praying churches and it's easier to find resources for praying individuals. But it's hard to find a resource to help families become praying families. Books have been written to encourage families - and moms, and dads, and kids - to pray, but few prayer guides have been written with the family in mind. Few books are written to help a dad know what to say and do when it comes to gathering the family for an interactive prayer time.

As a church, we gathered together on most Sunday evenings throughout the year for a congregational prayer gathering. On the Sunday nights when we didn't gather (like Mother's Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, etc.) we wanted to develop a tool that families could use at home to facilitate a family prayer gathering. So, we began creating a variety of short prayer guides a dad (or other head of household) could use to help lead his (her) family in prayer.

Recently, we compiled forty prayer guides together into a book entitled Your Home A House of Prayer: A Scripture-Fed, Spirit-Led Prayer Guide for Your Family. The guides are to help dad know what to say to lead a 10 minute scripture-based prayer time that is fun and interactive. The book includes guides for special family days (birthdays and most major holidays), guides for special family issues (times of loss, illness and the sanctity of life), and general guides for any occassion. Each guide is based on a passage of scripture and follows a pattern of praying from that passage focusing on God, on yourself, and on others.

If you would like to get a book, just shoot me an email and let me know. Attached is a sample - Philippians 2.5-11.doc

It is a privilege to be part of a church that is committed to becoming a "house of prayer". We are seeking to saturate every aspect of what we do with prayer. It is a long journey and we've tried a few things that haven't worked all that well, but for the most part we have enjoyed taking a few positive baby steps along the pathway.

To that end, we create a Congregational Prayer Summit experience for our church family twice a year. Several of these weekend forays have been experiments into encouraging families to pray together in the context of a larger "summit" feel the we call "Family Prayer Summits".

The venue of one Family Prayer Summit was at our Senior Pastor's horse farm. We took a Friday night and Saturday morning, invited families to bring their kids grade 3 and up to come to the farm. We provided childcare at the church for the younger kids. Friday night was a fast-paced "Fresh Encounter" (Daniel Henderson / Strategic Renewal - style www.strategicrenewal.com) gathering with a worship band, a focus on scripture and prayer in short segments. Phil Miglioratti (www.nppn.org) facilitated our time together. We were committed to keeping the evening high-energy and fun. We had a roaring bonfire and all the accoutrements of an outdoor, "at the farm" feel. The next morning we reconvened at the farm for a morning of large group prayer, family prayer while walking through the farm's beautiful acreage, and life stage group prayer - for a different feel. Praying was the focus, but we also did some life stage training on how to pray more effectively as a family. The morning ended with a great barbecue lunch.

Another Family Prayer Summit had more of a "prayer journey" feel that focused on our city - Birmingham, Alabama. We gathered Friday evening at the church, where we played a fun family quiz game about the history of Birmingham. We then shared communion together in a creative way: Each family was given a copy of the day's Birmingham News and asked to find an article to which they could relate. The articles pointed toward a sin issue or an issue of need. The families were asked to pray about that sin or need and then bring the article and lay it at the foot of the cross as they came to receive the communion elements. In this way, they were identifying with the sin or needs of our city. The next morning, we reconvened at the church to load into buses and vans to travel to four different downtown parks: the civil rights park, the park at the county courthouse and city hall, a park in a spiritually challenging area of the city, and a park that overlooked the entire city that sits on a mountain. Prayer guides were created for each park and different issuses were addressed in prayer at each stop. The last stop included lunch. While we encouraged families to pray together, at some times during the morning we broke into life stage groups - mostly so the kids and teens could pray with their friends.

At both of these Family Prayer Summits, our families left excited about what God had done. It was so encouraging to see dads, some of whom were a little intimidated by the thought of leading a family prayer activity, really enjoy the process. Producing prayer guides to keep it simple was important. Staying focused on short segments that moved at a fast pace was also important.

For more information, resources and to see some photos check out www.FirstOfAll.org .