Contemplative Prayer Stations

Using symbols of how we have been hurt or hurt others, this contemplative prayer station brings it to terms with God.
-thanks to .bE (found through http://pomomusings.com ) for this station!
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Directions for leadership:
This station requires paper, markers, and a way to dispose of the paper when done (waste bin, fireplace, shredder…) and the directions below for on the table. Here is one way it has been set up before.

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Directions:

The world is broken in many ways.
Our relationships with others, God, the planet and ourselves.

What hurtful things have been said to you? What hurtful things have been
done to you? If you were to write
a word, or draw a symbol to describe these, what would it be?
Draw it on the paper provided.

What hurtful things have you said? What hurtful things have you done? If you were to write a word, or draw a symbol to describe them, what would it be? Draw it on the paper provided.

Look at your symbols…do you want to take them with you?
Or do you want to let them go?

If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will purify us from all unrighteousness. Jesus said, “If you let go of the hurtful things people do to you, so God will also let go of the hurtful things you do.” This is forgiveness.

Think carefully. Are you willing to let go? If you are, then throw the
symbols in the box.
Let go of them as God lets go of the hurtful things you do.

You are loved. You are free.
You are forgiven.

This contemplative prayer station focuses on many aspects of our brokenness or need to be broken before God. It involves throwing Pottery!
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Directions for leadership:
This station is had the most impact out of every station we have ever set up… but it is also very complicated and messy. It focuses on our brokenness or our need to be broken.
We set up the room dividers outside in a curved line. We posted the quotes, and songs and verses along the dividers in a line, so people would start where the arrows pointed and move along the wall. The readings are in a specific order for the purpose of bringing people into a certain frame of mind and heart. At the end there is a bench with tons of pottery (cups, bowls, plates, flower pots… all gathered from the thrift store or garbage cans or garages). The person then picks out a pot, stands up on a chair and throws it down into a tarped off area. The idea is to smash a pot into a million pieces as a symbol. It is awesome. All throughout the service you can hear things getting smashed outside. It was a really sweet sound because everyone knew what it symbolized.
Make sure you have arrows and a sign saying beginning as well as goggles for the person to where when they smash.
A second idea: when we cleaned up we saved all the pieces. The next week we began a series on missions and we took all those pieces and made a mosaic table of the world. We then used it as an entrance piece. It was a potent piece of art work. At the end we auctioned it off and gave the money to our missions team.
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Quotes, verses, and poetry… in order:

“Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he did in fact was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty!
At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I asked and then he told me:
My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12:7-10

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.
1 Corinthians 2:1-5

SOMETIMES WE MUST BE BROKEN, BEFORE WE ARE TRULY READY TO GIVE OUR HEARTS AND OUR LIVES TO JESUS CHRIST.

AND IN OUR BROKENNESS, GOD FINDS HIS GREAT OPPORTUNITY. IN LUKE 9:23, JESUS SAID, “HE WHO FOLLOWS ME MUST TAKE UP HIS CROSS DAILY.” IT IS FINALLY OUR OWN EGOS, OUR DESIRE TO RUN AND CONTROL OUR OWN LIVES, WHICH MUST FINALLY BE SMASHED AND BROKEN, SO GOD CAN ASSUME HIS RIGHTFUL PLACE AS THE RULER OF OUR LIVES.

“O break my heart; but break it as a field is by the plough up-broken for the corn; O break it as the buds, by green leaf sealed, are, to unloose the golden blossom torn; Love would I offer onto Love’s great Master, set free the odor, break the alabaster.
O break my heart; break it victorious God, that life’s eternal well may flash abroad; O let it break as when the captive trees, breaking cold bonds, regain their liberties; And as thought’s sacred grove to life is springing, be joys, like birds, their hope, Thy victory singing!”
-Thomas Toke Bunch

But we have these treasures in earthen vessels, that the greatness of the power is from God and not from ourselves.
2 Corinthians 4:7

The Story of the Broken Jar
The master lived quite a distance from the stream. Every day his servant, the water bearer, would walk from his master’s house to the stream with two large pots, each hung on opposite ends of a pole which he carried across his neck. One pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the walk, while the other pot had a crack in it and arrived only half full. This went on for a full two years and the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, but the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its imperfections and of the fact that it was only able to accomplish half of what it had been made to do. Finally the cracked pot summoned up enough courage to have its own conversation with the water bearer. It went something like this. “I am ashamed and I want to apologize to you for I have let you down. Because of my flaws you have had to do twice as much work.” But the water bearer would have nothing of this conversation. “Did you notice the beautiful wild flowers along the path and did you notice that these beautiful flowers were only on your side of the path?” That’s because I have always known of your flaws and I took advantage of them and planted flower seeds on your side of the path and every day you watered them. And these beautiful flowers that you have watered everyday grace the master’s table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.”

WHAT IS BROKEN IN OUR LIFE? SHATTERED? FRAGMENTED? WEAK?

THE TRUTH IS, WE ALL ARE BROKEN IN SOME WAY.

THE CRY OF KING DAVID – HIMSELF A BROKEN MAN AT TIMES –ILLUSTRATES THIS IN THE 31st PSALM. DOESN’T DAVID SPEAK FOR ALL OF US, WHEN HE WRITES THESE WORDS:

“I HAVE BECOME LIKE BROKEN POTTERY.”

BUT WHETHER WE ARE BROKEN IN BODY, OR IN MIND, OR PERHAPS IN SPIRIT, WE CAN TAKE HEART, BECAUSE EVEN IN OUR BROKENNESS, WE ARE BLESSED. IN FACT, OUR BROKENNESS MAY BE THE VERY THING THAT ALLOWS GOD TO BECOME REAL IN OUR LIVES.

Why you holdin’ grudges in old jars?
Why you wanna show off all your scars?
What’s it gonna take to lay a few burdens down?
It’s a beautiful sound

When they all fall
Like a million raindrops
Falling from a blue sky
Kissing your cares goodbye
They all fall
Like a million pieces
A ticker tape parade high
And now you’re free to fly
-Excerpt from Million Pieces by Newsboys

What in your life needs to be smashed? Pride, desires, attitudes?
What is it that God has asked you to do that you haven’t due to your fears or because you don’t think you are the right person for the job?
What things both weakness, physical and emotional, do you need to let go of so that you can live a free life to serve God and Others?

Choose one of the various dishes on the bench, stand on the bench where indicated and smash the dish by throwing it on the ground in the designated area (follow the arrows).

As the dish shatters think about what you are asking God to smash in your life so he may use you for greater things. Or perhaps you are letting go of a weakness and becoming obedient to Gods invitation to use you. In either case, as the dish smashes, take joy in the fact that God will use the pieces to create a beautiful mosaic.

This contemplative prayer stations purpose is to give worshipers an opportunity to see what transformations can take place when the “scales” are taken away.

The original idea along with the example pictures were found at www.crosspointings.org.
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Directions for Leadership:
You will need: “Scratch Paper” (Purchase at any craft or art store), Wooden Dowels ( or something to scratch with), A print-out of Acts 9:18 and a print out of the directions (Both Below)

Set out several sheets of scratch paper on the table and set out the wooden dowels of various weights near the sheets. Hang Acts 9:18 and the directions where they can be easily read. Make sure there is a place where people can put their images when they are done. Some suggestions that we use are hanging them up on clothes lines with clothes pins or pinning them up on a pin board or tapping them on a wall. Be creative!

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The story out of Acts:

Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem. As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. 8Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.
In Damascus there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, “Ananias!”
“Yes, Lord,” he answered.
The Lord told him, “Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight.”
“Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem. And he has come here with authority from the chief priests to arrest all who call on your name.”
But the Lord said to Ananias, “Go! This man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.”
Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.

Directions:

Take time to quiet yourself and ask God into this time and into your thoughts.
Read the story out of Acts.
Take time to specifically ponder Acts 9:18, think about an image of transformation or redemption. how would the story be told if it were you? What would fall from your eyes?
Take a piece of “scratch” paper and a wooden dowel and etch that image onto the sheet. When you are done hang it up with a clothes pin.

Theme: reconciliation with self/physicality
Medium: chalk on manikins that have been spray painted with black chalk board paint
Idea Source: Youth Workers conference several years back

Theme: Passover/Obedience
Medium: A few 4x4’s built into a free standing doorway (or an old door in its frame braced upright), a large bowl of dark red paint and some paint brushes made out of branches. Make sure the “doorway” is over a tarp and that there is a bowl and towl in case it gets messy.
Idea Source: Jason Feffer from my Grad school cohort!

Theme: Holy Spirit/Breath of God
Medium: Fans dry erase markers for writing on them.
Idea source: I don’t remember… sorry.

Theme: Grief/supplication
Medium: A make shift wailing wall, pieces of paper and pencils. Might also want to research the real wailing wall in Jeruselem… *wink*
Idea: Youth Workers conference

An Idea from a woman who attends Centrifuge:
A prayer session we did…we had awesome worship music on…and there was a row(s) of chairs and you all sat in a chair and had two boxes at each end. One box was full of things to pray/do and the other was where they went at the end of being passed through the line. The box of pieces of paper were filled with…things like: “tell God the things of your past that you need to talk to him about”  "praise his name out loud”  "pray for someone who has hurt you” …etc its amazing!

Theme: What kind of print are you leaving on the world?
Medium: Set up a large beach blanket on the floor with several large tupperwear bins (with short sides) filled with sand for people to run their hands through, or step on.
Idea Source: http://www.labyrinth.org.uk/onlinelabyrinthpage1.html

Be sure to post what you do with these ideas in the comments section for everyone else use for inspiration!

This contemplative prayer station uses water and cups to demonstrate a prayer for the Holy Spirit to fill our lives.
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Directions for Leadership:
This station is a bit complicated. You will need: pitchers full of water, bins to catch water, cups or mugs, towels, and the directions below. Here is one way it has been set up.

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“But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us.” 2 Corinthians 4:7

We are jars of clay. Take a cup and a pitcher of water. Slowly fill the cup with water until it is full and over flowing over your hand into the bucket. As you do this, imagine God filling you with His Spirit to the point of overflowing to those you are around all week.