Blog
16th September 2024
By Lizzie Soar
Hey guys this is what we’ve been getting up to with Prayer Spaces in School in Sligo.
My first time working with prayer spaces was with our Alpha Holy Spirit day at Mercy College Sligo with Hannah O’Neill in February. We had 80 Transition Year students come to us and the school had a prayer room available so we were able to set up there. We had about 13 prayer activities like Thank You Blooms, Fizzy Forgiveness, Big Questions, Empty Chair, God’s table and prayers for Ireland. They are also offered to be prayed for as part of the Alpha course so Hannah led the setup and I helped her out.
We had 2 groups with about 40 girls. We got them talking about what their view on prayer was and then Hannah explained the activities. The girls had about 40 minutes in the room. After some time exploring we brought them back to the group for feedback. One of the girls said it was very peaceful whilst another said they liked the variety of topics within the activities. And most of them said they had never prayed in that way before and would like to do it again.
Next time I did prayer spaces was for the Ursulines Alpha Holy Spirit day May with about 90 girls in 3 groups of around 30 pupils. This school also had a prayer room that we could use. We used the same prayer activities as last time and the girls all got a chance to use the prayer space. These girls really enjoyed the justice based activities along with God’s table and Big Questions they also really engaged with the Empty Chair station too. A hand full of girls also opted into being prayer for at the end which had a visible impact on them.
The third time I hosted a prayer space was with Sligo Grammar school for their Alpha Holy Spirit Day in May. This time we had 60 TY students in a local church hall with 3 groups of 20. This time they really liked the Pipe Cleaner People, Thankful Blooms and Big Questions. A few of the boys asked to be prayed with and one asked if he could pray for us too which was really cool. When they had finished they said they really enjoyed the peaceful atmosphere and one student even asked if they could pray together as a group. We chatted about what they wanted to pray for and they said their exams which were happening the next day and that they would all have a great summer, so that’s what we did.
Anyways thanks for all the amazing resources i’ve really enjoyed working with prayer spaces and you really make it so easy to use, so thank you for that.
See you soon -Lizzie 🙂