3. What Are We Trying to Accomplish?

The Operation P.R.A.Y. goal is for students to experience God's love through prayer, share the good news of the Gospel, and receive salvation, deliverance, and healing. We desire to connect with a loving God through our speech and mannerisms as we pray. We want to overcome the negative “Christianese” stereotype of weird and overly religious and replace it with being relational, kind, and attentive with this generation. It is important we overcome this barrier so they may completely experience the love of Jesus. Here are some “how to” bullet points:

• Smile and be friendly.

• Introduce yourself (and team members) and ask the student’s first name(s). (Repeat the names back to them so we get it right!) This is a relational exchange - this is the first step in making them feel heard and important.

• Ask them how we can pray for them. Listen attentively to their requests.

• Pray short prayers - less than a minute!

• Pray the love of Jesus over them in each prayer - This will help open their hearts to God.

• When praying we recommend keeping your eyes open so that you can see if the teen is engaging or just looking around.

• We also recommend no touching as some might be sensitive to physical touch.

• Use conversational language when praying and avoid using “church language.” 

• Remember - Loving and relational, not weird and religious.