Prayer Jar

Check out the PrayerJar my husband made me for Mother’s Day! Isn’t it beautiful!

He found this ornate looking jar at Garden Ridge and then inserted a panel and decorated it himself! The scripture reads, “The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” James 5:16

If you're not familiar, a prayer jar can be a helpful way to incorporate prayer into your busy schedule. It is an intentional way to cover your family and friends in prayer as well as any other prayer concerns you might have. This might include praying for your church leaders, nation, sharing your faith, etc….

Here’s how it works:
Cut out 20 or so slips of paper and write the name of an individual, family member or specific concern on each paper. Or If you want to get creative, you can use different colored or patterned paper and assign each group a specific color i.e.

friends=red
family=purple
church=blue
sharing your faith=green

Everyday, draw a slip from the jar and spend time praying for that person/family/or concern. As each slip is drawn, paper clip all "used" slips and place them next to or back into the jar. When the bowl is emptied, shuffle the pieces and start over!

Invite your kids to join in too! This can be a great tool for modeling the importance of prayer to your children as well!

One way that I plan on incorporating this with the kids is to display our Pray Jar on our breakfast table. Every evening before dinner we’ll take turn’s drawing a slip from the jar and praying for that person or concern before our evening meal. The kids can add in their specific requests to the jar too and it’s always fun seeing what name will be drawn!

I plan on using a second jar to help with scripture memory with the kids too! In fact, I think the girls would have fun decorating their own jar. This just might turn out to be a fun art and craft project!