Exploring prayer with Christ Church CE Primary School

On Monday 6 July as the week of prayer for children and young people across the diocese began, a team from Christ Church in Weston-Super-Mare were privileged to spend the day with the children of Christ Church CE Primary School exploring prayer.
 
Nicky Boardman, Family Ministry Worker at Christ Church said, “When we were given the opportunity to have one of the travelling diocesan prayer boxes, I contacted the school and asked if they would like to send a group of children and staff to the church to explore the different prayer activities.  They replied that they would ALL love to come! The whole school! So, we created a timetable and seven classes and their staff visited us!”
 
Nicky, together with Angeline White and Lizzie Watkins therefore welcomed all the children.  With each year group they started by explaining what prayer is and then reading some of Jesus’ teaching about prayer, as retold in the ‘Jesus Storybook Bible’.  The children then explored the various prayer stations, and by the end of the day over 200 heart prayers covered the church wall and nearly 100 prayers hung on the prayer tree. Nicky says, “We had some wonderful conversations with both the children and the staff, and we had the opportunity to pray with children who were going through some difficult times. Some children wrote prayers in the prayer book, some were vocal and some were quiet.

“One quiet little boy, brought his mum and dad back up to church after school to show them what he had been doing and together they prayed and lit a candle.  Another, made a beautiful airplane from playdough because he wanted to thank God for the chance to go on holiday and visit family in another country.We are so thankful to the school for embracing the opportunity and for a wonderful day seeing God at work!”
 
You can see from the photographs that the children prayed for different countries in the world, prayed with play dough and pebbles, thanked God for making them special and unique, made pipe cleaner figures of the people they were praying for, and prayed around the Lord’s Prayer circle. If this story inspires you and you’d like to use the prayer boxes, please visit our prayer pages for further information.