Prayer Stations for Middle Schoolers

Yesterday we launched our four week easter series with a look at the Garden and Betrayal. Instead of doing our usual teaching time, we led students through a few different prayer stations. I'm feeling a little like Ben Franklin here as I rushed to put this together and am frustrated because it could have been much better. Oh well, not the first time I've learned from failing.

Here are some ideas to help you pull off great prayer stations for middle schoolers:

~Pick a readable version for your passage of Scripture. The Message can be really great with this, and really abstract, unfortunately. Sometimes the ICB version is the easiest to go with.

~Keep reading passages short and use BIG fonts. Some of our kids still struggle with reading while others FLY through it.

~If your station takes more than one sheet of paper, place them side by side instead of placing them on top of each other. This makes the reading feel more manageable and gives students another active learning aspect as they physically step over to read the next sheet.

~Add clipart or drawings. Make them fun to read instead of just blank words on a paper.

~I'm sure this is obvious...but have something tangible. If you are talking about food or taste...have something for kids to eat or snack on. If you are talking about Jesus' suffering, have some nails, hammer, or a crown of thorns to touch. If you are talking about praying in the garden, have a black table cloth and let them write thier own prayers with gel pens.

~As you are waiting for all the students to return to debrief, give kids paper to draw or journal and begin the process.

Check out this book by Dan Kimball and Lilly Lewin. I met Lilly last September at YS in Sacramento.