This past Sunday, our church focused on prayer and repentance, so we taught our little kindergarteners about prayer.  While this age isn’t my favorite to work with (I prefer the older kids: 5th grade and up), this group is growing on me, just like they do every year.

This year’s Sunday school class is especially mature for their age, and fairly tight-knit as well, though they are a large class (we usually have between 15-20 kids each Sunday, though past groups have been in the 10-15 range).  Oh, and they’re mostly boys (we usually have 4 girls there each week).

We three teachers split them up into 3 groups and lead them in praying, and it was neat to see how well they handled taking turns praying in a small group, and the true sincerity in their prayers for their fellow students’ mommies (we have 4 students who will soon have new siblings…our church definitely takes “go forth and multiply” very seriously), missionaries that they personally know, their family and friends who don’t know Jesus, and themselves (specifically, to help them love and obey God).

After my group was done praying, I started asking about when they find it difficult to treasure God (our lesson was from Matthew 6), and the kids were really honest with me.  One girl mentioned that she has a hard time obeying her parents, while another boy mentioned he struggles with lying.  The fact that they understand following God isn’t easy speaks volume to their maturity, even if most of them haven’t yet reached the point of making the faith their own.

This is just a glimpse of why I love working with these children week in and week out.