Creative prayer engages all

Interactive creative prayer: Engaging people of every age and stage

One of the best ways to welcome people of all ages in worship is to find different creative ways of praying. A creative prayer idea allows people across the age spectrum to participate, by saying, writing or crafting a simple word or two to offer to God. By keeping offerings simple, prayer becomes something everyone can engage with, whether they’ve been attending church all their lives, or this is their first time.

Gratitude prayers

In an intergenerational community I was recently part of, we practised a shared “gratitude prayer” each week. This took place where “prayers of thanksgiving” would occur in a normal liturgical service. I would open the prayer by asking a question such as: “I wonder where you have experienced God this week?” If the story we were hearing had a particular theme, such as a healing story, I’d vary my question and ask something like: “I wonder where you have experienced healing this week?” As our community practised gratitude prayers over many months, the community became practised at noticing where God was present in their lives, and developed the ability to share these with one another. Sometimes these were funny, or simple; other times our prayers of gratitude took us to the deepest places where God had touched our lives.

Creative written prayers

If you are a community who has worship stations, or an opportunity to make a piece of art together, this prayer type would work well. We often make a big poster image such as the one shared here which was made for the story of Jesus calling his disciples, and then write or draw our prayers at the appropriate time in the service, and come and add our pictures to our piece of art as an act of prayer.

 Here is a short reflection I wrote about a creative prayer activity that we did in our Messy Church Community last year:

During our ‘celebration’ time, we always include a prayer that involves each participant being invited to share their own prayer. Sometimes this is by lighting a candle, other times we write or draw our response, and add it to a communal art work. One evening, when we’d been exploring the story of Jesus calling his disciples, we’d made a big painting of waves and fishing and boats together, and we had stuck nets made from orange bags on the front.

During the prayers, everyone was invited to write or draw a prayer about someone they wanted to get to know Jesus on a fish, and then come and place it in the net. At the end one mum came up in great excitement to show me her three-year-old son’s fish, covered in scribble. “Look,” she exclaimed. “It’s his first prayer I asked him what he was praying for, and he said that it was a prayer for his dad. He’s really talking to Jesus.” How exciting to experience the first time a three-year-old talks to God.

There are many, many creative ways you can pray as a community. Why not try some out soon, and see if you can help members of your community deepen their prayer lives together.