"God do you like me?" Children Learn to Pray in UK SchoolsScot Bower - 4 Jun 2012

Children all over the UK and beyond are learning to express themselves in prayer, sometimes for the first time. These schools are both primary and secondary (elementary and high schools) and mostly state run. Each week hundreds of children are encountering God... in school!

“Dear God, I wish you would make my dad better, but I know there is no fix for brain injuries. I miss my dad and the way things were before the drink and drugs made him so sick.”  

Jason Taylor works at a secondary (high) school in the north of england ran a prayer space recently and everyday for 2 weeks found himself reading prayers written by kids who had visited the school prayer space, honest heart wrenching prayers. These Prayers told common stories of family break-ups, bereavement, relationship problems, issues with self-image. One child's prayer spoke of struggling to cope after an abortion. And each day Jason would take the prayers from the box where children had posted them and lift them to God again whispering his own 'amen'.

At Jason's school one student stood quietly in front of the prayer wall. A helper went over to see if the girl needed any help and to check she knew what to do. The student replied she was fine but the helper waited, rather than forcing a conversation she just stood with the student. After 10 minutes of silence, the girl turned and said, “both my grandparents have just died within a week of one another”. They were then able to have a short conversation and pray. 

At the end of the 2 weeks of prayer in Jason's school many students said they wanted it to be permanent and were grateful for the time and space to think and reflect on their lives and God.

And Jason concludes:

"It was a tiring fortnight physically and emotionally, but it was worth it. Staff who came to see what we were doing were blown away by the experience. The local press came to do an article and the reporter took some of the resources back to her offices to do them with her colleagues! News has got out and other local schools are now also interested in running their own prayer space."

The vision of Prayer Spaces in Schools is to establish prayer in the life of every school, and therefore every single child and young person in the UK (although it’s already spilling out into other nations).  We will do everything we can to equip, resource and partner with local people to serve their schools by hosting Prayer Spaces. If you would like to join us in fulfilling this vision please go to www.prayerspaceinschools.com and donate here.