Praying DURING Your Lesson

You probably pray before and after your teaching time. That's important, because Great Bible Teaching must be saturated with prayer. Unless God is at work, your teaching is in vain.

How much do you pray *during* your teaching time? Paul commanded us to pray continually (1 Thess 5:17), right?

The reality is that you may be really pumped as you teach.Your brain is going 400 mph. Your adrenals are zooming,the sweat is going. "Pray now, are you kidding me?"

Or perhaps you're really enjoying the discussion, and happy people are getting involved, almost tripping over one another in their excitement to add to the conversation.

Honestly, most teachers don't think about praying very much during the lesson time, because we're thinking about a lot of other things.

What I recommend you do is create reminders to pray silent, short, "arrow" prayers at multiple times as you teach. You can do this (really, you can) even while youare speaking or listening to someone else speak. Our Lord engineered us to be able to operate on multiple levels simultaneously.

Here are some example "arrow" prayers you might use:

"Make me a great conduit of your truth and grace, Lord."
"Help everyone hear clearly."
"Steady me, Father, so I won't get ahead of the lesson."
"Change lives, Jesus!"
"Be their real Teacher, Lord, just use me."
"Save their souls, Lord! Rescue them!"
"May the glory be yours alone."
"Glorify yourself, Lord."
"Open their minds, open their hearts."
"Come, Holy Spirit, come."
"Let your Words come through me now."
"Nothing is too hard for you, Lord."
"Feed your people, and draw them to Yourself."
"Don't let Satan blind or deafen them, Lord."

Easy, quick --and wonderfully effective!

Now, how do you remember to do this *during" the lessontime? I've got an easy solution for you to try:

Take a copy of the handout or your lesson outline, and put a special symbol by at least two or three parts. You can use a checkmark, or a little smiley, or an asterisk. Space these out through the lesson.

Each mark will be your reminder to pray. When you get to that part of the lesson, pray an arrow prayer! (If you're new to this, just pick one arrow prayer for the lesson, and pray that same prayer each time.)

Simple, easy, effective. And you're building a foundational habit.