After looking at the lifestyle of Dewi and his monks it was noticed that the monks spent a great seal of time praying. This work led onto a lesson on prayer in which the following questions were asked and discussed:

1. What do you think the monks might have prayed for?
2. When do you think people pray?
3. Where do people pray?
4. Do you pray (out of school)? Explain your answer.
5. Why do you think people pray to God?

The lesson was carried out with a Year 5 class (9-10 year olds). In this class most children pray at sometime, whether it is once in a while or on a regular basis. Few children denied the presence of God, but those who did were firm in their belief that God did not exist and were keen to challenge the views of those who believed in God. This provided a lively discussion with the views of all children being treated with respect (by teacher and fellow pupils).

Looking at the reasons why people pray the following points were noted:

God is powerful and can change things. He can, for example:

heal sick people
comfort people in times of sadness
forgive people
be a friend to the lonely / upset / needy.

God can also help with making important decisions.

The children (like many adults who do not pray on a regular basis) prayed when they needed something. Should this arise in a similar lesson, the following questions could be discussed:

Prayer is about "talking to God."

• Do you think it’s fair to talk to God only when you want something?
• Imagine that when you pray you are talking to God at the end of a telephone line. Do you think he would want to answer the phone if he knew it was yet another person asking for something?
• How would you feel if one of your friends only ever wanted to talk to you when they needed something from you?
• What else could you talk to God about?

BACK