reflective

Bible Snippets

Take a well-known Bible passage. For example on the fruit - not fruits! - of the Spirit - in Galatians 5.22-24.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Then as you go through each word slowly (out loud and/or on a screen) you encourage people to reflect on the word, what it means to them, what it means to the world - and then pray around that word)

So, the first active word is 'love'. What does it mean to love, love your neighbour, love God, love yourself? Where do we need to pray for God's love in our lives and our world.. and so on.

Silence

Sit in silence and ask God to bring things into people's minds and hearts to pray for. This may need 'practice' to make it happen. What does this mean? Well - try it a few times, introduce it slowly, explain what it means.

Waiting on God

Very often we pray to God but don't allow God space to reply to us. Why not spend time with God where you don't go away until you feel God has spoken fully to you. It may take a while but maybe, just maybe it's worth the time!

Light a candle

Dim the lights and have a bunch of night lights (small candles) safely placed at the front or sides of a room. Play some music in the background loud enough so people don't feel uncomfortable. Then encourage the young people to come forward as and when they want to pray for something. For each prayer they light a candle.

Pray for what you see

Why not put together a video with items from world, national, local news and put some reflective music over the top (video edit it or use a CD!). Then get the young people to pray for what they see

Praying using the eyes, ears and mouth

In Genesis 1:27, we learn that God made man in his own image. We also find that God was very satisfied with what he had created - and rightly so!

Why not use features of your face to symbolise prayers. If you take your eyes as an example, you can pray that you will see people with God's eyes, or that you will see situations or decisions through the eyes of God. You could also pray for healing or restoration of sight for someone. You could pray that the church sees the world around it as Jesus saw the world when he walked on the earth

If you move to the ears, you could pray that you will be receptive to the cries of help from people around you or across the world. You can pray that you will hear God's voice above any other voice and put his will into effect in your life (see James 1:22)

Thirdly, if you take the mouth, you can pray that your tongue will be controlled (see James 3:2), that you will speak encouraging words to others (1 Thess 5:11) and to pray in times of trouble and sing praise in good times (James 5:13)

Remember

Use a cross and get the young people to bang nails into the Cross. For each nail banged into the cross, get the young people to say something as a promise to God. They then take away another similar nail. Get the young person to take the nail away and keep for life as a memory of what they have said, done or promised

Prayer positions

I'm not talking about getting a prayer mat and facing towards Jerusalem (or heaven!) Through the Bible there are many times when people pray kneeling, bowed down head to the floor or flat on the floor before God (see Daniel 6.10 for example). The Bible says we should humble ourselves. I think it's good to be humble and kneel in the presence of God sometimes