Prayer Space in St Edwards School

Last week, I was in St Edwards C of E School, helping my friend Marcus Giddy host their fourth Prayer Space week. And yet again, it was amazing...

We'd borrowed a few new prayer station ideas from Tim Abbott and the Sanctum project in Colchester, such as the Letting Go/Forgiveness Stones zone.

Up to three students could use this prayer station at once. Each would listen to a short monologue recorded onto small MP3s which talked about the weight of unforgiveness, and then invited the students to take a stone and place it into a bowl of water if they felt they wanted to signal their intention to let go.

Acting our prayers in this way is an ancient practice. Raising our hands, kneeling down, bowing our heads - these are all actions that signal intentions. And if prayer is simply communication with the God who sees everything, then it follows that we can communicate more creatively, with actions and gestures and physical forms, in just the same way that we do with one another.

I watched lots of the students as they listened to the recording. I watched some gripping their stones tightly, obviously identifying it's weight and courseness with their internal feelings, and then placing them carefully, sometimes hesitantly into the bowl of water. Some smiled as they took their earphones out. Some looked close to tears and ducked away quickly. And a couple of students even replaced the stone back on it's pile, acknowledging that this wasn't the time that they could let go of whatever had hurt them.

"I liked the stones," said a year 8 boy during the feedback afterwards. "You could tell that some people were really feeling it." Indeed.

The Big Questions zone was popular, as usual. Marcus had a daily question written onto the whiteboard, which students could write their responses to. And then he invited them to explore their own Big Questions with any of the team during the lessons.

"Why did my sister die when she was two? I think God must have had a reason." asked the first girl, as I stood by the board. My heart sank.

"To be honest with you, I don't know why she died," I replied. "But if you mean, do I think that God had a reason... that God was somehow active in her dying, then I'd have to disagree. I don't think that every bad thing that happens has a reason, but I do think that God is with us in our pain. God suffers too... perhaps that's one of the most extraordinary things about the God of Jesus Christ?" We talked about meaning and compassion and Jesus and Lazarus for a while.

The next girl started began by asking, "Do you think I'm too young to become a Christian, a proper one. I still lie and stuff." I admitted that plenty of adults do too (even me!), and then we talked about love and forgiveness and knowing God as a Father and never being too young to love and that kind of thing. And I did suggest that she might be missing the point of what it means to be a Christian... that it's not just about doing good/avoiding doing bad. ;)

As usual, loads of the students wrote down 'sorry' prayers onto the torn bits of cardboard.

Sometimes, we didn't know what the prayers were about...

Sometimes it was more obvious...

Sometimes, we wondered if the students really were asking the impossible!

And sometimes, they were just very funny... here are two of my personal favourites;

I just love the priorities here... keep my Xbox safe, and the people in Chile, ohh, and while you're at it, how about the whole world. ;)

To finish off, here's a few of the things that the students said during the feedback;

"I liked the mirrors. I'm a good person, but there's things I need to do better."

"I liked the sand, the impressions thing. it makes you think about your actions and how they affect other people."

"I wrote on the Big Question board that I think God speaks to us when we're ready, but thinking about it now, I disagree with what I wrote... I think that God speaks to us before we're ready." (What a fascinating insight!)

"I liked the board. I didn't write anything but I read other people's answers and they made a lot of sense."

Marcus and some of the staff at St Edwards are now exploring ways to develop the Prayer Space by wrapping in discussion and debate times, input into assemblies, and maybe even host some kind of permanent space. All very exciting.

If you're interested in Prayer Spaces in Schools, please flick back through other stories I've posted on my blog, or visit the Prayer Spaces in Schools website - Joe Knight has just posted a superb story-article there today.

Comments

[Emma]

Brilliant!