| Introduction
Prayers can often be far too passive for children. Here is a way to make
your prayer reflections more interactive.
Preparation
This does not need any particular preparation other than knowing which
direction is north, south, east and west for your school!
Development
Explain that for our prayers today everyone is going to stand and turn to
face different directions to help us in our praying.
Each bidding and suggestion for prayer for the four directions could be
led by a different child. It may also help to have a visual focus for each
direction, in which case you will need someone to hold an appropriate item
up when the children turn in that direction. For example: a local newspaper;
a globe; a national newspaper and a picture of a current international
situation. These will fit with the different prayer focuses described below.
i) The children are asked to turn and face north. Depending on
where your school is, this may be a direction of most of the rest of the
country and so the focus of the prayers would be for prayer for the United
Kingdom – its leaders and institutions; the work of the church and the
challenges of a particular situation that is in the news at the time.
ii) The children are asked to turn and face west. Depending on
where your school is, this may perhaps face the majority of your town or
city and so the focus of the prayers becomes the local streets, the local
councils and events as well as other schools. Include of course any local
issues that are in the news at that time.
iii) The children are asked to turn and face south. For most
schools this will mean facing towards the developing world, particularly
Africa and there shall be an opportunity to focus your prayers on the needs
of particular country with which your school may have links.
iv) The children are asked to turn and face east. Again for most
schools this is facing towards Europe, the Middle-East and the Far East.
Sadly this area has never been short of prayer needs in recent years and so
focus on praying into the situations that have hit the headlines from these
areas.
By now you have turned to face every direction and so bring all your
prayers to a conclusion using a gathering prayer such as:
Lord of the world, we bring all our prayers to you.
Lord of north, south, east and west, we pray that your love will continue to
inspire, challenge and strengthen all the good that is done in your name.
Lord, all the corners of the world are in your hands, so show us what we
should be doing here in our corner to be part of your work.
Martyn Payne |
