Dear Parents, Sunday School Teachers, Children Ministry leaders,

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With the pandemic keeping a lot of kids from coming to church to learn about God, we have been exploring an alternative way to bring God’s Word and Jesus’s teachings to them.

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We decided to launch our Bedtime Stories and Prayer Program via the Internet in August 2020. It is designed for children 4-8 years old, but we have had older children who seemed to enjoy the stories too. Our mission is to introduce Jesus and the importance of prayer to them at a young age.

The strategy is to use secular children’s books with teachable values that will appeal to both believers and non-believers alike. The lessons we draw from the stories are highly relatable to their lives and we also weave them into the teachings of the Bible.   

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We have recorded stories by reading them ourselves, supplemented by animation and speech bubbles that we added to make the contents more engaging and lively. Lately we have mainly used read aloud children’s books on YouTube that meet our criteria.

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Each story ends with a “What can we learn from the story” segment that highlights the teachable lesson, augmented by a Bible verse that imparts a corresponding message.

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We then enter into our Prayer Time where kids are invited to make prayer requests for themselves, for people they know or any topic that’s close to their heart. Their requests are blended into a closing prayer about the night’s program, about thanking the Lord and seeking His grace. This is a wonderful opportunity to learn more about the kids and also to model for them how to pray.

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We close the program with the reading of the Lord’s Prayer and a closing music video echoing the teachings from the story, ending the program in a joyful and upbeat mood.

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A lot of time and effort is put into each week’s preparation and we would like to share it with our bigger church community so that more kids can benefit. Following are story books we have read in the program, starting with the latest. The images on the teaching and the Bible verses are included to help with your storytelling. A link to the author's website is included where available. An Amazon link to support the author’s book sale is also included should you wish to purchase a copy . Some authors have provided supplementary materials for their books such as coloring or activity sheets.

We welcome your comments and feedback to let us know how we are doing, or how we can make it better.

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If your church or community is interested in adopting this Storytelling and Prayer Program model, we would like to show you how. Please fill out the form with your request and contact info (email, phone). If you like what we are doing and wish to support our mission, your giving is welcome. Your prayer support is important, and always appreciated. Thank you for your interest in helping to bring our kids closer to the Lord.