This imagery of the armor of God is powerful not just because of its easy translation into flannel graph, but it invites us into prayer through its imaginative approach to Biblical themes. This prayer activity helps students think creatively about how they might pray about the issues it raises.

Before class get a piece of butter paper and have a student draw a life-sized outline of a body. Think through which parts of the body would be labeled with each piece of the armor of God, and pre-draw a line, but do not label the area. Once you are finished, tape the paper to the wall.

• Begin by asking students to read Ephesians 6:10-20
• Then, ask them students to look through the scripture and fill in the labels on the drawing.
• Point out that the passage doesn’t end with the armor, but with prayer and tell students that you are going to spend time writing prayers for each element.
• Challenge them to write a prayer that includes something about the faith idea (salvation) and the part of the body or the part of armor (helmet/head). They might say something like “Please help redeem my thoughts and make them be like the new me instead of the old me.”
• Give each student several post-it notes and invite them to write one short prayer for each piece of armor that will fit on a single post it. When they finish each prayer, they can go stick it on the part of the body outline labeled for that piece of armor.
• Close your group by praying several of those prayers out loud.