Read Luke 11:1-13 with your family.

When Jesus was alive, he was not the only spiritual teacher walking around Galilee and Judah, teaching a group of followers named ‘disciples’. There were many others doing the same thing. As long as they didn’t encourage rebellion against Rome, the Romans left them alone – which is why Jesus was killed in the end… he did encourage people to work for a new world that wasn’t run by the Romans.

One of the practices of all spiritual teacher/disciples relationships was the teacher telling their disciples what to pray. Jesus was different. If you look at our story for today, you will see that Jesus never said “pray these words” but rather “pray in this way”. Jesus never told us to memorize this prayer and only use this prayer, he told his followers to use the prayer as an example of how to pray to God.

First: Address God respectfully

Second: Ask for what we need to survive (this is not a prayer about wants)

Third: Ask for forgiveness for our mistakes and bad behaviour (this might be called ‘sins’ or ‘debts’, each translation of the Bible uses different words)

Fourth: Help us keep focused on God and what God has asked us to do, and not get distracted but what society says is important

Another version of this prayer can be found in Matthew 6:9-13