St. Barnabas is one of a handful of congregations participating in a pilot project for the Minneapolis Area Synod called "Cherish Our Children." As part of this initiative, St. Barnabas has started a new prayer ministry.

The goal is to have every youth in our congregation (age 3-grade 12) prayed for by an adult every day. The adult pray-ers, whom we refer to as "P.A.L.'s" (Prayer Advocate Lifesaver), will have one of our youth randomly assigned to them. The P.A.L. will be given the name and age of the person they are praying for, together with a list of 31 brief intercessions - one for each day of the month. The goal is that once a P.A.L. is paired with a child, the P.A.L. will pray daily for that young person until he or she reaches the age of 21. If either the P.A.L. or the youth moves out of the St. Barnabas community, that connection ends and a new partner will be assigned.

Parents are notified of the identity of the person praying for their child and will have the option of contacting the P.A.L. with special prayer requests. However, there is no contact between the adult pray-ers and the kids. In fact, the kids won't even know who is praying for them - just that they have a P.A.L. who prays for them every day.

St. Barnabas currently has 215 youth age 3- grade 12. If you have 30 seconds a day to pray for one of St. Barnabas' kids (or maybe two or three), stop by the P.A.L.'s table in the Ministry Center to get complete information. For more information, contact our P.A.L. coordinators, Carol Talus (763-557-7097) or Michele Burnett (763-478-9875).