Week 10 - evolving and changing

On Thursday I tried something different again. Having deliberated over the success of The Station, when it seems to be very difficult for people to walk from the hall into the vestry, I tried putting some information relating to prayer on the tables in the hall. I felt that this was much more like following the principle of being incarnational, and going to where the people were, rather than expecting them to move elsewhere.

The response was subtle but still effective. I did a small heart shaped labyrinth and asked people to trace their finger around it whilst praying for a person or situation. I imagined that leaving them on the table might result in people picking them up to see what they were and then just perhaps doing it almost absent mindedly as they talked or listened to the people on their table and this is what happened. Several people I spoke to either did this themselves or told me that they had seen other people doing it.

I also made small business size cards that had little sayings on about prayer and on the back it said that people could take them away. It was just a way of encouraging people to think a little bit more about prayer and to maybe connect with it in a way that they never had previously.

In addition to the above, there were two prayer stations in the vestry; one of them asked people to roll two dice and to then move to a square on a board where they were asked to pray in a particular way eg giving thanks, saying sorry, praying for others. The idea of this is that if people are unfamiliar with prayer, they are given information on how to pray and what to pray for.The second one asked the individual to draw around their hand and then to think of anything they needed help with and to ask God for a helping hand.

Of the prayer activities in the hall and the ones in the Prayer Station in the vestry, I felt that those in the hall were the most effective. Who knows what might be taking place in someones life who engages with the labyrinth or takes away a prayer card? It meant that there was no embarrassment or anyone looking to see where a person was going when they got up out of their seat to go to The Station. I would really like to develop this further if the time was available to me and think that I could produce mini versions of some of the activities I have done before in The Station, eg Doodle Prayers.

The Psalmist says in Psalm 54, 'Hear my prayer, O God; listen to the words of my mouth.' I believe that some form of prayer in the hall could be very effective when people get used to it and realise that it can be done without embarrassment or fuss. People can make the choice not to do it but others might discover a God who cares for them and does respond to their prayers.