Sharing a thoughtful reflection and advice on prayer and ways we may help young people Prayer – Good News, Bad News, Weird News By Fr. Steve Ryan, SDB The good news is that researchers of the National Study of Youth and Religion found that most young people want to be connected with God. Certainly, even if there are more and more young people who are labeling their religion as “NONE”, the overwhelming majority of teenagers believe in God. The bad news or the weird part about this connection with God is that it lacks familiarity (i.e., fraternal or paternal depth). Many of today’s somewhat spiritually-aspiring young people look at God as a sort of “divine butler”. He is someone whose job it is to be at their beck-and-call. He exists to give people what they want, when they want it. And when they don’t need God anymore, they’d like him to go back into the kitchen where He belongs! Adults, they are watching us. Be a good example of prayer. Unwittingly, we may actually be feeding a debased view of God by the way we teach young people to pray. Instead of adoring and magnifying Our Lord, praising His divine attributes, giving Him thanks for his wondrous deeds and begging forgiveness with contrite hearts – we’ve taught them that prayer is simply asking for stuff. Maybe we’ve actually perpetuated the “butler at your service” image of God. We’ve (without malice or bad intent) taught young people that “the harder we pray, the higher God jumps.” Adults, here are two reminders for us as we model prayer for young people: 1. Stay joyful! Let’s remember that prayer is a joy. A good prayer life is a gift that brings a joyful countenance. Prayer is not a discipline we must muster and master to get God to do what we want Him to do. When I see old religious people who have grown in prayer by practicing it daily for decades, I see gentleness, joy, calm and peace. 2. Don’t model a diminished view of prayer for young people where we pray only at certain times, with certain words, in certain places and in a certain tone of voice. As a result, people learn that prayer is primarily rote, coercive and/or administrative. Let’s model new ways to pray that are primarily relational. Like what? Try… • Small-group sharing • Prayer activities that teach your people to offer something to God, not just take something from Him • Teach those in your ministry to ask Jesus, before starting to pray, what He wants for someone. So often we “pray without knowledge” because we don’t first stop to ask what’s on Jesus’ heart for someone – we assume we already know. • Since our prayer times are too often focused on our own needs, teach those in your ministry that intercession on behalf of others is a courageous and humble gift. • Every now and then purposely transition from talking to your people right into talking to God without prefacing your prayer by saying, “Let’s pray” or “I’m going to pray now.” Just talk to Him. This models prayer as something natural and teaches that God is with us in the here and now. Transformation and creativity in this one area – how we model and teach prayer – will start to work against the “divine butler” mentality that’s so entrenched in today’s young people.
