Find the missing piece

A new prayer station has just been installed in our prayer space at St Stephens, Redditch, in the side chapel at the front of church.


















The prayer is focused around jigsaw pieces, reflecting on what we need to complete our life. The words written on the large jigsaw piece include the Trinity & the fruits of the Spirit.

In the basket, the jigsaw pieces available for writing on are an incomplete children's jigsaw from a charity shop.

Visitors can write what they need on a jigsaw piece and then either take it away to remind themselves or leave it for others to pray for.

The Bible verses to help reflection are: 

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  Phil 4:6

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Matt 11:28

The Lord is close to the broken-hearted

and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18

plus a quote from St Augustine:

“You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.”

With the jigsaw theme, it seemed appropriate to have a large, 1000-piece puzzle available for people to add to.

St Stephens is a lovely cool place to spend time - a real blessing during a hot Summer - so we're hoping we'll get lots of help to complete this picture of Noah and the animals leaving the ark.

We've also got a new set of toddler puzzles in the children's corner. An activity sheet might appear if time allows.

Celebrating Pentecost

The week before Pentecost, we celebrated Ascension when Jesus tells his followers to wait for the Holy Spirit. It seemed like a good Sunday to start the Pentecost prayer station.

The cellophane ribbons were cut from rolls and hung from a curtain rod. The red fairy lights are powered through USB connections so are plugged into phone chargers on a timer. The ribbons hanging from the candlesticks look pretty but had to be removed as I hadn't realised that these particular candlesticks are used during funeral services (oops).


Visitors are invited to think about people that need the Holy Spirit, including themselves; write the names on flames or doves and stick them on the cellophane with sticky buddies.
As always, they are encouraged to spend some time thinking/praying for those people.

Even with just a few on, the "wall of flames" is beginning to look effective. I'll try to post a final photo before it's dismantled.

Instructions with Acts 1:8

Children's Corner

The same cellophane ribbons were hung from a hula hoop suspended from the ceiling tiles above the children's corner. The doves and flames available here are larger and the ribbons come to just above adult height. I was aware that it was too tempting for children to tug on the ribbons so adults are needed to do the sticking...
I also managed to find a children's book on Pentecost with the story told in rhyme. It's a bit old fashioned but I do like to add to the book collection.

Lord's table

For this prayer station we've been particularly blessed by Karen who used to do a lot of flower arranging. She offered to help and I set her loose on the Lord's table that's in the side chapel (with permission from the vicar).
I'd had the idea of draping red fabric from the cross with a white dove at it's centre but Karen made it come to life with some gold voile and ribbon spiral flames. She also made a foot-piece that finishes it off but I didn't get a photo of that.
The existing real candles have been replaced by (safer) battery candle lights. They are effectively weighting the fabric to stop it slipping off but I think they add to the design.
This table is the focus of the quiet time & morning prayer that happen most weekdays 8.30-9.30am so it will be interesting to get some feedback from those people that attend.

And here's the final curtain of Pentecost ribbons - a lovely, bright celebration!

On His Hand

April 2016

The current prayer station in St Stephen's church is based on:

"I have written your name on the palms of my hands.” Isaiah 49:16

A local printer was commissioned to print the image as large as possible and fix it to corrugated plastic.

Visitors are invited to think about the last time they wrote someone's name on their hand; to write their name on the poster and to spend some time thinking about what it means to have their name on God's hand.

Inspiration for this came from the Prayer Spaces in Schools website.

Prayer Labyrinth

March 2016

Prayer Labyrinth

This was a simple floor labyrinth with a pile of rocks at the entrance. Visitors were invited to pick up a rock, carrying into the centre and then leave it at the cross there, retracing their steps to exit.

The labyrinth had to be created in situ. It's a bit too big to lay out anywhere else.

The floor cloth is 2 DIY dust sheets sewn together. They are an open-weave fabric on one side and thin plastic on the other. This was very handy so that the paint didn't go through to the floor underneath. The concentric circles were drawn with chalk using string around a traffic cone. The horizontal and vertical lines were added and the gaps brushed away to form one pathway into the centre.

I walked the route many times as I painted it in (with black emulsion) as I was paranoid that I would create one gigantic dead-end - not a good spiritual experience.





The top picture shows the labyrinth set up with the cross in the centre with some rocks and with some rocks at the entrance. There are bible verses on the outside of each quadrant:

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not see it?" Isaiah 43:19

"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28

"Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7

"Remember the Lord in everything you do, and he will show you the right way" Proverbs 3:6

Once set up, I walked the route, carrying a stone simply to test it. Assigning a particular concern I had, I felt surprisingly lighter after placing it by the cross.

A young boy carried a large stone into the centre, saying that he was carrying for his 1 year-old cousin because he couldn't carry his own.

This prayer installation has had the biggest impact so far.

In the children's corner I added a book on different labyrinths from around the world. I also created some finger labyrinths which I laminated.

How do you feel?

February 2016

The latest prayer station has been installed at St Stephen's Church, entitled "How do you feel".

The visitor is invited to take a glass bead and place it on one of the emoji plates.

There are 4 sad faces and 4 happy faces drawn on paper plates with a couple in between...
After spending some time talking to God about how they feel, they can move their bead or put a new one down on a different plate - how they're feeling now or how they want to feel..

The verses available (on funky foam) are all from Psalms where, of course, you can find most emotions:
Psalm 13
Psalm 23
Psalm 28: 6-9
Psalm 56: 8-13

The back drop and the large faces were made from 3 paper tablecloths from the 99p Shop. The lights were left up from the last station.

The poster advertising it now has "St Stephen's Prayer Space" on it. I realised that our notice boards act as a public space so we get posters advertising things at lots of different places. The previous posters could have been advertising prayer spaces in any local church!

I got a couple of emoji cushions that were everywhere before Christmas. They've been named Chill and Si (thanks Nicki) and have come to stay in the children's corner. They are "guarding" the felt pens and paper plates with an invitation for children to draw their own emoji faces.
The felt pens may be a bad idea and have to disappear but we'll see...
It's the school half-term holiday next week so I'm hoping that parents will pop in with their children at some point.

Autumn Prayers

Our first open prayer station in St Stephen’s, Redditch has been installed.

“Open” because it will remain here for the next 3 weeks and be available whenever the church is open which is for most of the working week and on Sundays. Congregants, visitors, tourists are all welcome to engage with it, or not.

This first one is called “Autumn Prayers” or “Falling Prayers”.  The main visual inspiration for this came from Old Tractor Tin Shed's Blog.

The guidelines I've provided to engage with the prayer station are only suggestions and I'm hoping that people will feel free to do their own thing.

The Bible verses given are:

• Pray continually – 1 Thessalonians 5:17
• I cried….I prayed… He listened… I praised! Psalm 66:17-20
• I waited patiently for the Lord;    he turned to me and heard my cry. – Psalm 40:1
• Because He bends down to listen I will pray as long as I have breath – Psalm 116:2
• I took my troubles to the Lord; I cried out to Him and He answered my prayer. Psalm 120:1
• Let your hope make you glad.  Be patient in time of trouble & never stop praying. – Romans 12:12
• In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;  in the morning I lay my requests before you  and wait expectantly.– Psalm 5:3
• In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. – Romans 8:26

The Autumn tables are covered in bronze coloured lining fabric and have leaves, bark and mossy sticks collected from our garden. Our Christmas decorations box has been raided to add pine cones.  There are a couple of conkers but most of the ones I found were too small and represented a choking hazard.

The cardboard "leaves" were made by putting real leaves on the card and then spraying with gold paint, removing the leaf.  The added bonus is that the gold spray caused the card to curl, making it more leaf-like.

Some Autumn-themed colouring sheets have been added to the children’s corner to tie in with the theme.  They were free printables from the Ministry to Children Website and Alisa Burke's Blog.  I'd like to be more creative with this corner but my current priority is to get the prayer space up to scratch.

There are a few things that need sorting out which became obvious as soon as I set this up and I’ll explore those in the next post.  Some can be resolved straight away but, because this will only be here for 3 weeks, some will feed into the next station design, which will be linked to the Messy Church we’ll be having on the theme of Noah’s Ark.  I’ll post on that late October.

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