Kids Roadmap

I just wanted to post something about the 8th annual Kids Roadmap being held on July 11-13th at Park Plaza church of Christ in Tulsa. It was in 1990 that a group of us went to the Children's Pastor's Conference together in San Diego. I remember well one day at lunch Patty Weaver and Von Corbet came back to our table and were talking at mach speed about the seminar they had attended on planning a prayer and mission adventure for children. They were so excited about what they had heard and thought we should all get together and plan an event for Dallas. Thus Kids Roadmap(Mission and Prayer Adventure) was birthed. This event is for children entering 3rd through
6th grades. Each church that particpates agrees to have an 8 week (8 hour) teaching session on prayer. All the children that will participate in Roadmap agree to attend the 8 lessons on prayer. The curriculum teaches children how to pray covering aspects of prayer such as: prayer walks, intercessory prayer, journaling the meaning of the Lord's prayer and praying through your hand and several other topics.

On Roadmap weekend all those principles are put together to make for an incredible weekend. The kids and their sponsors all arrive on Friday night. Prayer groups are set up all around the sponsoring building and the kids have different prayer experiences. Then on Saturday we do a prayer walk around whatever town we are in. The kids load up in buses or vans and travel to different locations and then surround that location and pray for it. Such as: a children's hospital, an abused women's shelter, a firehouse, police station, government offices, nursing home, schools, Ronald McDonald house, etc. Each participant is given a book with scripted prayers and they all unload off the buses and surround the facility and say the prayer. This last for about 6-8 hours on Saturday with a break for lunch.

Saturday night then is a "fun night" with games and a movie. Sunday morning we worship and have another prayer time before heading for home. Some of the churches that have hosted this event have been Altamesa, Saturn Road, Ennis, Bammel Road in Houston (2 times), Heritage and Richland Hills. This year as I mentioned earlier will be at Park Plaza in Tulsa.

Of all the programs I had when I was in Children's Ministry, I considered Roadmap to be the one with the best eternal reward. It was amazing to watch our children capture a true spirit of prayer. Adults could not believe that children (ages 9-12) would pray for an hour. The biggest blessing is after Roadmap was over these children continued to be prayer warriors. They continued to make prayer a priority in their lives. Because of them our church became a better house of prayer than it had been before. In 2005 when I would be involved in a life altering accident, the sweet children at my church prayed for me constantly. One night they had a prayer service and the children lined the pews at the front of the building and one after another for over 45 minutes they said prayers for me.

When we first started Roadmap our vision was to do it a few years with a combined Dallas/Houston effort and then break off and each city do their own event and then eventually each church do their own event and involve other churches in their communities. This year Oklahoma is joining in with hopes of having Oklahoma churches get involved on their own. I am hoping that if you are reading this you see a potential for your city and your children. If you have any questions you can contact Will Spoon at Park Plaza in Tulsa (wspoon@parkplaza.org) for this year's event, or Patty Weaver at Richland Hills,patty.weaver@rhchurch.org.