What Our Kids Teach Us About Prayer [Paperback]

T. Wyatt Watkins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2005

We’re all accustomed to hearing about prayer from mystics, preachers, and spiritual masters, but what if we could learn from listening to our children? In What Our Kids Teach Us About Prayer, Reverend Watkins looks at the struggles everyone endures as they try to pray and shows how children lead us out of those struggles with their candor, humor, and willingness to say absolutely whatever is on their minds.

Product Details

• Paperback: 174 pages
• Publisher: The Crossroad Publishing Company (October 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824523199
• ISBN-13: 978-0824523190
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,654,828 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A "Can't put it down" book, March 31, 2007

By 

Judith Rundel "Librarian" (Franklin County, Florida USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What Our Kids Teach Us About Prayer (Paperback)

T.Wyatt Watkins catches the reader and never lets go - with humor, humbleness, and raw honesty. This book is a rare look into a family that values what their kids say. It's one of the most charming and engaging books I've read in a long time. I bought What Our Kids Teach Us About Prayer for all the people I love.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Listen to God Through The Children, February 15, 2006

By 

Evie Lucy (Indiana) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Our Kids Teach Us About Prayer (Paperback)

T. Wyatt Watkins has captured the essence of a God presence seen through the mind and spirit of his children. I am impressed by Watkins willingness to be honest and vulnerable with his children about his questions, his search for a God that makes sense in a difficult world. It is excellent modeling for children and adults. He is a master with the use of words that draw pictures for the mind and heart,regarding creative ways to pray. His illustrations evoke mental pictures of the world, creation, the Divine in our midst that makes sense and also makes room for awe, wonder, and mystery. We are accustomed to having conversations with one another, Watkins invites us to do exactly the same thing with God. Our talk with God isn't just a one way street. We can even tell God we are mad with God's way of being, we can even tell God we forgive the way God seems to be handling the world. God has broad shoulders. What a revelation. Watkins children are reminding him of the many ways in which God is with us. In the midst of the every day stuff of life, God is present, listening and caring about us. The children catch that idea from parents and other adults who are willing to listen and care about them. This book is filled with a refreshing theology that speaks to the children, youth and adults of today. A must read.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Provocative Relationship, April 2, 2008

By 

Robert N. Sanders (Indianapolis, IN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Our Kids Teach Us About Prayer (Paperback)

Because T. Wyatt Watkins is pastor of the church I attend in Indianapolis I bought and read his "What Our Kids Teach Us About Prayer." It is provocative yet charming. His gifts at relating to his children are at the root of why this book was a delight to me. The illustrations by his children didn't hurt either!

Like Huckleberry in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," I have said many times to myself in relationship to prayer, "...there ain't nothin' in it." Wendell Berry's book entitled "Jayber Crow" has similar thoughts and he roots questions about prayer in what he describes as "Jesus' own most fervent prayer that was refused, 'If thou be willing, remove this cup from me....'" Maybe he could have learned from Watkins' book! Why these questions? Well, the new cosmology has convinced me that we live in a cosmo-centric world. If this is the case then how do we name and adapt the understanding of prayer so that it communicates the reality of this world view? Is there no way? I have been struggling with that problem for years and had just about concluded that Huckleberry was right. Then I read this book by Watkins and have come to see that there is another way. I had already concluded that what the clergy of El Dorado, IL, did one year in calling an emergency prayer meeting to contact God and request relief from the drought was rooted in a geo-centric world view, not cosmo-centric. The hot and dry spell had baked the corn on the cob, exhausted the public and well-nigh emptied the reservoir. I never did find out whether God did or didn't open a holy spigot. But that was a perspective rooted in the world view that is clearly passe.

That other way is that of this book where prayer is seen as personal even if God is not a personlike being. Watkins has helped me envision God as personal because we are touched at our deepest and most passionate level when we pray, because there is a quality of presence in that relationship and because, to use Marcus Borg's words, there are "proddings" that come with a sense of being addressed in a personal fashion.

This may seem bizarre to you but this book has been a meaningful part of my pilgrimage in recent years. To relate meaningfully to your children in this area of prayer is to do so in a personal way. And Watkins does this with care and wisdom. You just can't stand with the image of God as a righteous judge with a wagging finger saying 'no no' or as an angry and red-faced potentate or as an indifferent and aloof deity who doesn't want to be bothered if you will read this book. I heartily commend it to you if there are any resonances between your struggle and mine!