This contemplative prayer station invites people into the mystery of God by focusing on their view on certain paradoxes.

Directions for Leadership:

This is a hard one to set up.  If possible, use 4 movable room dividers and set 2 up on one side and the other 2 up across from those; making a long hallway down the middle.  About 5 feet off the ground (high enough to duck under, low enough for short people to reach) sting several ropes going back and forth across the “hallway”.

On either end of the rope place each side of a paradox.  People will take a cloths pin and put it on the rope where their line of thinking tends to sit.  For example, the theology of free will simplified has two sides: Free will and Predestination.  I am a firm “free will” girl, so I would put my clothes pin on the side closest to the free will side.  On the floor along the sides put bibles for people to look things up along the way.  Or, print up the verses and some explanations (try not to be biased!) to pin up for people to read at each spot.

At the entrance of the Hallway put the directions along with a basket of clothes pins (enough for every person to take 6).  At the end put the quote from the book Blue like Jazz.

Prayer Station Instructions:  To place at the beginning…

Paradoxes – conflicting ideas that are both somehow true

The Christian faith must include paradoxes, because it deals with God, whom no human mind can understand.

Directions:

Take 6 clothespins.

As you walk inside the “hallway” you will see an idea on each side of you and a rope overhead connecting them.  The ideas are paradoxes from within the Christian Faith.  Take a moment to think about each paradox.  You may look up the verses to help understand the theories.  Then hang a clothespin on the line above you to mark where you tend to live and think theologically at this point in time.

Paradoxes For in the Hallway:

*Predestination. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .*Free Will

(God chooses who will believe)                                  (God allows us to choose)

Romans 8:29-30                                                          Revelations 3:20

Ephesians 1:5                                                              Luke 11:9

*Jesus was human. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *Jesus was God

Luke 19:10                                                                  Matthew 16:15-16

1 Timothy 2:5

*God is infinitely loving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *God is infinitely just

Ephesians 2:4-5                                                           Acts 17:31

*Saved by beliefe. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *Saved by works

Ephesians 2:8                                                              Matthew 25:31-46

James 2:18-20

*God is Unchanging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .*God changes his mind

Psalm 139                                                                    1 Timothy 2:8

2 Chronicles 7:14

*God is three persons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *There is only one God

(The Trinity is the name we give to the                      Deuteronomy 6:4

concept of God the Father,

God the Son (Jesus) and God the

Holy Spirit that is found

throughout scripture.)

Matthew 28:19