Sprouts is a wonderful way to encourage your children on their road to a life of Christian discipleship. This is perhaps one of my favorite things to do as children's minister at First United Methodist Church in Hendersonville, Tennesssee. It is a time of relationship building, discovering, and encouraging with one another. I have the privilege of leading Sprouts time with the fifth graders.

Sprouts teaches Acts of Kindness, Acts of Justice, Acts of Worship, and Acts of Devotion. This article is about how we help children learn about Acts of Devotion.

Praying and studying the Bible are the focus of our devotion. To make this a priority we have created our own "children's version" of Disciple, creating a daily Bible study that can be read, shared, and discussed. Each week has a basic theme with six days of brief Bible study. For example, one week the topic might be praise. We would use different verses that teach how people praise God. Each daily reading is only three or four verses long. The children read the Scripture, then answer three questions:

1. What does this Scripture mean to me?
2. What questions do I have about these verses?
3. How should I apply this Scripture to my life?

On the seventh day we come together to share our insights and questions during our regular Sprouts meeting.

Included each week is a daily prayer suggestion. This may have an emphasis for the children's prayer of the day or it may be a different way to pray. This allows us to teach that prayer is like a conversation with God. Prayer does not always mean sitting quietly and bowing our heads. We can talk to God in many different ways.

One example is to use the ACTS method of prayer. Here we teach that a prayer may include Adoration (praising God), Confession (telling God what we have done wrong), Thanksgiving (offering thanks to God for all that has been given to us), and Supplication (asking God to help others). Another example is having the children write a praise alphabet or acrostic prayer. This is praising God by using words that begin with every letter of the alphabet (e.g., awesome, bold, caring, divine, etc.).

Using Acts of Devotion through Sprouts, our children are developing a daily habit of prayer and study. This is a time of excitement, enlightenment, and wonderful discoveries. I have also heard from parents that the children are asking questions. This is resulting in family discussions in many households. There is no better way to glorify our Lord!

Cay Barton is Director of Children's Ministries, First United Methodist Church, Hendersonville, Tennessee.