Lord's Prayer Project
After reading the interview by Ms. Meggen Watts in the February issue on how she uses the Lord's Prayer in her work with the State Department, I realized it is simply too easy to repeat the words but not really understand what they mean. I want my Sunday school children to know the power and meaning within our most important prayer-the Lord's Prayer. I want them to understand that this simple prayer is the answer to every problem they may ever encounter. I want them to see how they could use the Lord's Prayer in their daily lives and how this one prayer could change the world.

What better way than to turn this into a bulletin board project! Creating a bulletin board demands deeper thought and action than simply answering a question in class, and the Lord's Prayer deserves this attention. There are many different forms this could take. For instance, take each line of the Lord's Prayer and create a whole board around this one thought. You could devote the board to one line a month, or one line a week. This could be a joint Sunday school project with everyone working together, or you could assign each class its own line for its own board. The possibilities are endless, but here are a few ideas to get you going:

• What does this mean to me? Have the children write down, in their own words, what the Lord's Prayer means to them. Write down specific ways they can incorporate this into their daily life. These can be written on colored poster board and cut into different shapes. The younger children can draw pictures to illustrate an idea.
  
  
• How have other Bibles and Bible commentaries recorded and interpreted the Lord's Prayer? Look and compare several different Bibles, i.e., The King James, The New Testament Modern English, The Message. Take your favorite versions and post them on the board.
  
  
• Interview different people in the church and community to see how they use the Lord's Prayer in their life. It would be interesting to have a variety of people from different walks of life and from different Christian churches in the community. You could take a picture of the person and post his/her quote or experiences next to the picture.
  
  
• Turn the Lord's Prayer into a healing message. Research how turning to the Lord's Prayer has healed people. You will be amazed at how many people in your own church or community can give you healings. Record these healings and post them on the board with related pictures.
  
  
• Show a correlation between the Lord's Prayer and healing in the Bible. Give an example of a healing and how it relates to the Lord's Prayer. For example, the feeding of the multitudes by Jesus would apply to "Give us this day our daily bread." Have the younger classes draw pictures of these healings.
  
  
• Heal world problems. Take a community or world problem and show how this prayer could apply. Take an article from the paper to illustrate the problem, and then give examples of how this has been healed in the Bible, in your church and your community. Again, you will be amazed at how many people have used "Give us this day our daily bread" to solve their own need for supply.
  
  
• Challenge your church and Sunday school class to use the Lord's Prayer for peace. How does the Lord's Prayer protect us? Use the board to record and share the experience, including comments and results.
  
  
• Create a comment corner. Provide a space where people can write down their own comments, and inspiration. Have a supply of blank index cards that they can write on and stick on the board.

Remember that our goal is to have the children have a deeper understanding of the Lord's Prayer and the bulletin board might be just the vehicle!
— Sally S. Johnston