by mjjames11/01/2010On Saturday we had our circuit 2010 prayer lunch. It was an event to focus us all on God at the beginning of the year and to invite God to be at the centre of all we are and do. We focused on the verse "be still and know that I am God" and created 7 different 'prayer spaces' to facilitate this.
Our rooms included
A labyrinth
Sitting with Jesus
A soaking space
Multimedia reflection
Prayer and hand massage
A creative space
Corporate prayer area
The day was fantastic and many people were blessed by the time they were able to set aside for God. Many people heard God speak and in our share time at the end of the day it was so encouraging to hear what it was that God had been doing and saying in people's lives.
I'm a big fan of the creative/alternative prayer approach - my whole dissertation was on it and how we communicate with God, but since then I've not had any real space to run creative prayer events. It was a real blessing (and a challenge) to be able to plan, organise and facilitate this day and it resonated with something in me that has been left dormant for a while. Let's just say it has reawakened some areas of my life that God has spoken to me clearly about and challenged me about what to do with them in the future, so lets just say watch this space.
Whilst in my preparations I spent some time exploring all the wonderful material avalibale on the internet and from various organisations and I found a lot of things I could use, or adapt to fit the theme (why try re-inventing the wheel). I never like to use anything just as it is written, I tend to take an idea and customise it to a work in my situation, but I do like to get inspiration from those who are more skilled and practiced in this area than I am, and there are some things that are just not my forte which I need to get from other sources.
If you are planning something similar in your church (or thinking about how to do an interactive and multi-dimensional prayer event) then here are some of the resources I found helpful:
Engage Worship - is a site that has wonderful resources for prayer and worship, I used their powerpoint presentation on the names of God in our multimedia space
Jonny Baker is a guy that produces fabulous resources, at present he has 3 sets of worship tricks that include creative ideas, liturgies, movies, music, service outlines etc. He is involved in a Christian community called grace that seeks to create worship that people can relate to and has been inspiring and resourcing the wider church in the area of alternative worship. This means that they have produced a wide range of fabulous resources that can be used by the wider church. I really liked the idea their new year labyrinth which I adapted and used with my own labyrinth path design, you can find labyrinth designs and instructions here at labyrinth.
I also have two books which I love on this topic tune in, chill out and alternative worship. Both of which provided inspiration for the day. I used the 'call to worship' in alternative worship to invite people to bring all that they were into worship and set the scene for the day.