Rach Warwick, who coordinates Orison around the UK has helped start another initiative getting LUNCH provided over the summer holidays for children in need in the UK!

The website www.makelunch.org.uk tells the story:

Having first experienced the "prayer tent" on their school field when they were in year 3, the year 6 pupils at Potters Gate are experts. Over the past 4 years they've watched it grow from that first small tent with a bubble tube, into a transformed classroom with a series of classroom lessons running alongside and then a village of tents back on the field with a range of interactive prayer activities. It's a much anticipated annual event for their school. So this year, I spent an afternoon with them a few weeks ahead of the Orison week at their school to see what they thought should happen next.

We talked through what Orison was, their memories of previous years and what it's all about, before looking at different ways of creating resources and generating ideas. Using a box of interesting objects   ..... more

Olivia Seymour sent us through reports of the wonderful prayer spaces schools in York have been doing. The first was in Crayke (VC) Primary School

“On the prayer day my favourite was the thinking zone because it had the plasma ball. When you put your finger on, it follows you everywhere and it is like God is always with you.” (Yr 3 pupil) As part of the school’s RE week we held an experiencing prayer day at the sports club. Staff, parents, members of the church community and pupils worked together to create an atmosphere of mystery and wonder in which the children were invited to participate in practical and reflective activities in five themed zones. In the worry zone children were invited to talk about the kinds of things that worried them. They blew bubbles and as their bubbles disappeared they imagined that they had let go of their worries. “I liked how you draw your worry on the rock,” said one pupil. “You washed the rock and I stopped thinking about the worry.” They drew chalk pictures on large cobblestones and washed them away to leave their troubles with God to deal with. ... MORE

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Thanks to all those involved in Littlehampton Academy last week. Paul Sanderson (the school chaplain) set it up and coordinated a great group of Christian volunteers to join us for set up and helping the young people engage with all the prayer activities. Jon Jolly (one of the local Christian youth and schools workers) joined in enthusiastically and then wrote this on his blog. Thanks to him for such a clear write up!

"This week I’m helping to run an interactive prayer space in our local secondary school. The chaplain and team invited Orison to come to the school and set-up their brilliant exhibition, so yesterday I got stuck in! In case you’re wondering:

Orison is an interactive spiritual experience, encouraging people of all ages to engage read more..."

Here is a wonderful report from the school on the two days we spent there...

Year 8 and 9 pupils benefit from the Orison Interactive Workshop
On Monday the 22nd and Tuesday the 23rd of November, the Lower School Hall was transformed into an interactive prayer space with tents, lights, bean bags, maps and a bubble tube which encouraged students to explore issues of spirituality and prayer.
The hall was split into five zones - the sorry zone, the bubble zone, the world zone, the discovery zone and the image zone.  Each zone encouraged students to engage in different ways and make their own personal responses.
Here are some of those responses from some Year 8 and Year 9 students:

“I really liked going to Orison on Monday.  I feel it helped me to connect with the world around me.  My favourite part was looking in the mirrors (I know that sounds bad!) but it made me accept myself for who I am, not what other people say to me or about me.  I liked to watch the tablet dissolve because as it fizzed up I felt like a weight off my shoulders and I could let all my anger out of my system.  I really loved Orison.”

“I felt that Orison was really helpful for me and it shows that you don’t have to be religious to pray.  The activity I enjoyed the most was the ‘Bubble Zone’.  The bubble zone made you think really deeply about anything and asking God to maybe make it better whatever the situation was.  Another activity I really enjoyed was the ‘Discovery Zone’.  I enjoyed playing with the static ball because when you lay a finger on it, a single line connects to where your finger is from a ball in the middle.  The ball symbolizes God and when you put your finger on the ball the line represents the connection between you and God and if you move your finger anywhere on the ball a line will still connect.  This symbolises that you can’t run away from God.”

... are springing up.

In Benson School in Oxfordshire Catherine Clayton is leading one this week. Bill Cahusac of HTB went to visit and had a very emotional experience.

Hi everyone,

As the title says, we have a growing need for people to join us in helping to take orisonschools.org.uk into primary and secondary schools across the UK.

Here's a really interesting blog on Prayer Spaces in Schools by Joe who does this kind of work in Gloucester...

"When you've done a lot of prayer weeks in one school, especially a school where there's a fair bit of need, it's sometimes easy to overlook the warm and occasionally moving conversations and prayers with the students themselves. It's important to stay focussed that this is the whole point of the thing, and not to get too bogged down with school politics. One lad asked if he could pray for his dad who had cancer, and i was quick to say 'of course!'. But he knew he could, and I recognised he wasn't necessarily asking, he wanted to let me know what was going on. we had a good chat about it and he wrote a few prayers down and stuck them on the wall.

Later on a teacher came in asking about him, apparently his behaviour had been really irratic recently, but the teacher hadn't known what was going on at home.

These little stories are what make these prayer spaces so special. When prayer rooms become places where people can open up and pray about the stuff thats really going on, it makes a big difference.

We rooted our prayer space this time in the story of Jesus feeding .... MORE ...."

This was a good one. Another good partnership between a school, FAST (a team who organise volunteers from the local church to serve in primary schools) and those of us who are running orison in Farnham.

Dim lights

The "Prayer Spaces in Schools" coalition is now quite a few groups that are leading or promoting work very similar to ORISONschools.org.uk. Rachel Warwick has been working with them to encourage more and more of this kind of work in schools. Some is lead by pupils, some by teachers, and some by Christians from local churches.

At Soul Survivor 2010 the whole coalition is working together to lead "the Furnace" and other prayer spaces and to promote the approach among the young people and youth workers at the festival. Come and see us in "the Furnace" or the "Toolshed".