This Advent, discover how Strathendrick Baptist Church created an intentional prayer space right at the heart of the local community!
Susan shares with us the creative way the church has developed their initial prayer event ideas and integrated them into a local high school…
“Strathendrick Baptist Church ran our annual ‘Reflections room’ at Balfron High school during the first week of December. This is a Prayer space, open to school staff and pupils during the school day, and we stay open until 8pm for use by the wider community. Adapting resources from ‘Prayer Spaces in School’, we set up several prayer stations around the room. Over the years, we have learned that providing creative ways to pray is just as valuable as traditional ones and can be a way of facilitating prayer for people who ‘don’t do church.’
Some of our popular prayer stations include: ‘The Empty Chair’ where people were invited to reflect on the people they are missing this time of year, and for our World’, where people are invited to place an electric tea- light on a world map to symbolise praying for that country at this time of year.
It actually all began around 15 years ago, when the church learned of the concept of prayer events and decided to give it a go, starting off small with a 12-hour prayer room set up in the local village hall.
After feeling a huge sense of God’s pleasure, we knew we had to continue. Learning of prayer spaces in school, we were highly inspired and determined to approach the local high school to see if they would allow the church to host a prayer room there.
After years of praying and knocking on the door, eventually- through a Christian teacher- they allowed us in to host a prayer space.
We have now run our ‘Advent reflections’ in the school for around 8yrs. In previous years, we had lower engagement with the room, from class teachers in the
high school, but would usually have a class or two from the local primary school visit the space. This year, we have focused on building a stronger relationship with the high school throughout the school year. We have employed a Youth and Outreach worker, who has enabled us to increase our engagement with the school and during our ‘Advent Reflections’ this year, we had more engagement from high school teachers, encouraging their pupils to come into the space during class time.
We were inspired to persist because we really felt that this is something God is calling us to do, to allow young people to experience his love for them for themselves.
God has taught us, if we set up a space and dedicate it to him, he WILL honour that and come into it– and so into the lives of young people and staff members too. Not just this year, but, throughout the years, feedback from people who have used the room has always been hugely positive. Many people say they have experienced God’s presence in the room; that the second you walk into the space there is a clear sense of peace.
We are extremely excited to see what God is doing through this prayer space and in our small community.
We were recently blessed with the opportunity to rent out a building in the village. We are looking to set up a community hub – ‘The Beacon’- to serve our local community. This will also give us a space to set up more places for prayer in the village. Not just ‘Advent reflections,’ but ‘Everyday reflections’ encouraging both those who regularly pray and those who have never prayed before.”
