Title: How to pray – a guide for young explorers Author: Pete Greig and Gemma Hunt Illustrator: Patrick Laurent Published by: Hodder Price: RRP £10.99 available from Eden for £8.36 Good for: Children, young people and adults age 7+ especially those who like visually interesting books and not big blocks of text Best bit: Brilliant internal design … Read more
This simple idea is the perfect way to slow down and connect with God. Walking a labyrinth is an ancient way to pray, using your body to help you focus and go slow. You can read more about the history of labyrinths here but the best way to discover them is to walk one! In … Read more
I love finding ways to pray with young children. This works from the age where a child can point, and works well for any age above that! All you need to do is build two things, buildings, trains, whatever your children enjoy. Chat at your build them, and give them each a name of a … Read more
I live on a farm and love using the seasons to inspire my prayer. In the past few years, I have so loved all the different types of daffodils coming up. I love their blooms, but I’ve also really enjoyed their super-vivid-green stalks. I think it happens when we have sudden warm spells and they … Read more
This fun activity was created by my friend Caroline. Instead of ‘fortune cookies’, she made ‘encouragement cookies’ simply by writing out blessings on slips of paper then put them inside home-made fortune cookies. Warning: the folding bit is rather hot, so be careful! What sort of blessings you write will depending on who you are … Read more
What fragile things could you pray for? If you can find some snowdrops, take a photo and use it to inspire your prayers. Every year I love it when I see snowdrops appear. I love their fragile beauty, intricate petals and flimsy stems buffeted by Winter winds. I love their tenacity in arriving while snow still threatens. While other … Read more
One This is a really simple, seasonal prayer activity to do as a family at home: When you see something looking beautiful because it’s covered in frost, praise God for it: You may well find younger children are good at this as they often have a better connection to awe and wonder. Don’t limit their … Read more
This is a really simple, fun way to pray in a group. You could do this at home, or as part of a party or even a service! Blow up the balloons and write or draw on each something about God. You could use: words (or pictures) which describe God (e.g. great, strong, kind, loving, … Read more
This is a really popular prayer activity: 1 Grab a pack of multi-coloured sweets — Skittles work well! 2 Assign each colour sweet a category, for example: Red: family Purple: friends Green: environment/ animals Yellow: the world Orange: school/work 3 Take it in turns to pick one sweet. You could do this with your eyes … Read more
A really simple way to pray without using words is to build a Duplo house and give it a title such as: The House of Peace. Invite people to choose a Duplo person to represent someone they know who needs more peace / they’d like God bless with peace and put them inside the house. … Read more
I was chatting with my friend, Sarah, about being thankful, and she told me about this really cool thing they did last Advent in their family: They each wrote a thank you note to every other member of the family. The notes were short and simple, thanking them for something specific. The then folded the … Read more
It seems this year that Autumn is particularly spectacular. The horse chestnuts seemed to go brown overnight a few weeks ago, but nothing else had happened. Then suddenly, I woke up to find trees which were green yesterday are now a brilliant, bold yellow. Others look like they have been dipped in the Creator’s massive … Read more