Prayers of the People

Last night at youth group we spent the evening focusing on prayer. After a meal and a short ice breaker we broke kids into four groups and had them rotate through four stations which were designed to help students experience prayer in new ways.

Ice breaker: Eyes and Toes. The group forms a large circle and in instructed to look at everyone else's toes. On command (eyes), students look up and stare at someone else's eyes in the circle. If that person is staring back, both people are removed from the circle, as partners they sit down to learn fun facts about each other until all participants are out. When everyone is out, the group reforms into a circle and people introduce their partners to the group with their new fun facts.

Prayer Stations:
#1 One Liners - posted on one wall is a journal entry from a teenager. after reading, students are given post-it notes and asked to write one line prayers and stick them to the journal entry on the wall. We used an anonymous blog and edited out any mentions of names or personal information. I was surprised to see what resonated with students from the blog. Relationships, school, homework procrastination, difficulty with parents, all of these got lots of prayers. The point of the station was also quickly learned that a prayer cna be a short intercession.

#2 One Word - in a darkened room, students huddled around a table and smooth stones. Rotating around the circle, each student took time to create one word with the smooth stones as a prayer. Words ranged from names to countries, families, topics, and events. this was the most contemplative station, and the sound of stones moving across the table top was a beautiful break in the silence as students concentrated on the one word prayer being offered by their peer.

#3 Maps - at this station I hung maps of our city, our country, and our world on the wall. Using bingo markers to make dots, students came up to the map one at a time and marked a spot on a map, then explained to the group why that particular place was on their mind or in need of prayers. They concluded each explanation by saying: "Lord in your name," and the group responded with "hear our prayer." This station was amazingly visual and allowed some of our differently abled participants to really be a part of experience. Schools, vacation destinations, families, conflicts were all prayed for. Surprisingly the station allowed students to connect with each other quite a bit as they explained pieces of their lives that they don't always share, like a brother who lives far away or a concern that they have been wonderign about.

#4 Dinner Prayers - at this station students were instructed to write the words to the prayers that we sing each evening before we eat dinner. It was definitely a servant station to help newer students learn the prayers that we sing each night, and we'll use these poster boards in weeks and years to come as we pray. When they were finished writing on a poster board they were also instructed to write their own song/prayer. Of all the stations this was the most silly. Partly my fault, I left out the hula hoops from our gathering time so there was a little more activity than desired. Only one group tried to write a prayer, and it was also probably too short of a time to come up with something useful. Many groups loved to write though, which made this station a good release for our students.

This weeks group was preceded by a mission trip meeting for all 8-12th graders going on our summer mission. I never allow our regular youth group time to be dominated by one of these meetings because there are kids who come to youth group who don't attend the summer trips and kids who come on the trips who don't regularly attend youth group.