Creative Prayer: The Prayer Report

Focus: Reporting on God’s activity in life

Before You Begin:

This adventure is a project for your family to work on over a long period of time. You’ll need either a notebook with paper in it, or a blank book such as a journal. Title your notebook or journal, “The Prayer Report.”

The Prayer Time!

Begin by telling family members that you’re all going to become journalists for a new book called, “The Prayer Report.” Ask family members to think of one or two prayers God has answered, and include those as the first ones reported in your book. These can be recent answers to prayer, or ones that happened years ago. Have family members tell about these answers to prayer.

After each person shares, write the details of the prayer and how it was answered in the book. Family members may want to write the information themselves, or one family member can be given the role of “Reporter” to write down all the family prayer answers. Begin a new entry for each answered prayer.

When each family member has at least one entry into The Prayer Report, begin interviewing other people about their answers to prayer:

As guests join your family for a meal, ask them to share a time they remember God answering their prayers and record them in your family’s book.
Ask leaders from your church such as pastors, Sunday school teachers, or volunteer staff to share answered prayers to be entered into your book.
Talk with extended family members (grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, step-brothers or sisters, and so on) and include their answered prayers in the book.
Ask any other friends or acquaintances you like!

As time goes by, your entries will begin to fill page after page with answers to prayer. Your family members may want to continue adding their own answers to prayer as well. Occasionally read through some of the entries together as a reminder of how God has worked in the lives of many people over the course of many, many years!

[Note: My husband, Mike, once did this project over the course of a year or so. When he was done, he’d collected so many cool answers to prayer that he wrote a book about it: True Stories of Answered Prayer!]