The Prayer Bucket

A veteran Seminary teacher told me about this method of choosing prayers for class that helps avoid having the same few kids volunteer to pray each day. I have used a similar method in Young Womens classes, too, and it works beautifully.

You’ll need :

• a wooden Popsicle-style craft stick for every person in your class (plus some extras in case you get move-ins)
• red and green paint or markers
• a container to hold the completed items

I went to Walmart and bought the wide craft sticks and some green and red paint. The cool little bucket came from Target and it cost around $2.50. (You could, of course, mark one end with a black marker or something if you didn’t have paint.)

I painted the tips of the sticks, one side at a time. After one side dried, then I turned them over to paint the other. I stacked them up one top of each other in a spiral to dry so that the edges didn’t touch the table. If you were really awesome you could paint the names on the craft sticks. I used marker to write them on, and the ink bled. No one has complained though.

To use the prayer bucket, turn all the sticks so that the green side is facing up. Have your class president select a name from the bucket to pray. It helps if you do this the first time in front of the class so that they see everyone has a turn, AND they won’t be asked to pray again until everyone has a turn. After the person has prayed, return their craft stick to the prayer bucket with the red side facing up. For closing prayer, choose another name and return it with the red side facing up. Now at your next lesson, choose from only those sticks with a green tip facing up for prayers.

This method makes it so easy to keep track of who has prayed, and lets everyone participate equally. Thanks, Rob!

I’ve also done this in Young Women with a box that I wrapped in nice paper and divided down the center. One side was marked “chosen” and into it went the names of girls who had already prayed or led the theme in class. I just printed the names of class members on slips of paper for the Prayer Box.