Day 5: Prayers for Churches Serving Children

Posted on August 23, 2012

Prayer for Churches and Ministries who are serving Latchkey Kids

Did you know that In America today, millions of young people are alone and unsupervised in the hours after school, before parents return home from work. This situation places children and teens at grave risk for juvenile crime, substance abuse, teen pregnancy, and other problems. It means students are wasting precious time when they could be learning. And it leaves millions of working parents worried about their children when they should be focused on their jobs. The after school hours are the peak time for juvenile crime and experimentation with drugs, alcohol, cigarettes and sex. Teens who do not participate in after school programs are nearly three times more likely to skip classes or use marijuana or other drugs; they are also more likely to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and engage in sexual activity.  Did you know that there are churches in the greater Houston area that are meeting this need?

Let’s Pray
Father we give glory and honor to you today. You are the Creator of the Universe. In you we live and breathe and have our being.  Thank you for your amazing love for us and for all the manifestations of love that are present in our daily lives. We are blessed people and we give you thanks.

We come to you today Lord on behalf of the thousands of children in the Greater Houston area for whom the hardest part of every day is the time between the close of school and when a parent comes home. We have called them latchkey children. Today we come to pray for them.

We struggle Lord to get our arms around the magnitude of this challenge. On a daily basis, we work to make our own lives work. Often we find that our concern cannot be turned into effective action because all the need that is out there overwhelms us. We ask you to help each of grow in our capacity to do our part, and we ask you to move in the hearts of those who are not yet involved to take some of the responsibility for the needs of children in our community.

We thank you today Lord for Trinity Vineyard in Tomball and for the creative ways that they are connecting to children – including latchkey children  – in apartments that are near their local congregation. We ask you to bless them as they reach out to a wide variety of kids who don’t have the kinds of support that children need. And, Lord we ask you to call more and more congregations to take on serving children who are without adult supervision between the close of school and the time parents get home from work.

Thank you Lord that you love latchkey children far more than we ever will. We ask you to change our hearts to have more of your heart. All of this we ask in your name, the name of Jesus, and for the sake of the children of our city.