school prayer week: day one

some of you will know, a while ago I was inspired by reading Phil Togwell’s blog on running a prayer room in his local secondary school. It had been on my mind for some time and this gave a good encouragement for some exploration.

Well. Today we’ve done it! I’m currently sat on a chair in the middle of our prayer room. I am amazed, bewildered and slightly dazed from the day’s events.

Not least because I’ve arrived to this Monday having had a packed weekend– we travelled up to the UK Network Day for 24/7 in Gateshead…and, what an awesome day! oh I could write loads, even though we were well tired getting home yesterday (so awesome to break the journey at my bro’s in Nottingham), it was just ace. One of the discussions and prayer times focussed on prayer rooms happening in local schools – and it was really inspiring and encouraging to hear that three of us were beginning prayer weeks today.

And here we are.

Starting early in the morning. Myself and Chris arrived to meet the school chaplain – also Chris. Some local people will know that the school has received a lot of hardship from local press recently. The school has a lot of difficulties. Having been rescued from closure a few years ago by the Church of England, it has been on a hard slog to turn round lots of problems. And they’ve done an incredible job, and it certainly doesn’t help with the local press just persistently undermine their efforts. There are still things to work through – exam results are within the lowest of the city, 50% of the students are classed as ‘in poverty’, which means that there is an inevitable colourful and at times very distressing family situations. The police are here most days recently. This place needs prayer.

The three of us prayed and went off to take the all school assembly. It went really well. Chris, the chaplain, was brilliant and Chris, the dude, was awesome with the kids. Throughout the day we’ve received emails, and lots of comments from students and staff that they couldn’t believe how well behaved everyone was, they really enjoyed what the three of us put together.

It’s just coming to the end of the day now. After the fun times at assembly, myself, Chris the chaplain and the head of B&V (beliefs and values) finished putting together the prayer room. We opened at break. We opened at lunch. And we opened when school finished.

About 35 kids have come in. one girl came at break, brought friends back at lunch and came in at the end of school as well. In the morning she wrote ‘needing faith’ on the prayer wall – after school she wrote ‘Jesus saved us’…We’ve set up some real simple stations for prayer (I’ll put some pictures up as the week goes on), we’ve put a bit of effort in but it’s nothing real major. We wanted to keep it simple – but the kids are loving it. We had a bunch of kids come at once during lunch, which was full on. Some came to mess around, but God soon took them by surprise. I hope they come back. One guy said to a friend, “mate this place is paradise”…another said “this is the best room in the school”…on slightly funnier notes, the chill zone almost turned into the ‘pillow fight zone’, and I had a strange chat with one kid that seemed genuinely freaked out what he would do with all his ‘millions’ that he’d prayed for…its good to have a strong faith I guess! haha...

Lots of other good conversations about bullying, families. A whole load of gypsy kids came in and loved the family tree prayer space. Staff have come in because they wanted somewhere peaceful to work, other tutors have come in asking if they can grab the tutor group slots in the mornings.

It’s been really amazing.

Most of all. It’s amazing to have a space set aside for God in the middle of school life. A school that really needs Jesus, especially right now. To know his love, his peace, and his ability to do ‘what man thinks is impossible’, and to calm the waves and storms of this community.