“I now see God’ - the Amazing Story of Prayer: In Schools across the UK. Rebecca Swarbrick - 22 Jun 2012

A student in Liverpool, accompanied by the rest of her class, spent just thirty minutes in a school chapel that had been converted into a place of interactive, creative prayer and walked out with the simple reflection. “I loved it. I now see God”. The school chaplain shared his report:

During R.S. lessons the students visited 13 different prayer stations where they were able to speak with God and reflect on different things in their lives. Each session provided opportunities for the students to reflect and pray for family, friends and people around the world. They also took time to say sorry and think about forgiveness on a deeper level than before, and think about who they truly are and what they would like their future to look like.

The response from students and staff was astonishing. Students wanted to come back during lunchtime to finish off stations they didn’t have time to do. This experience has really helped transform the spirituality of the school. This is definitely an experience the school would like to experience again in the future.

‘Prayer Spaces in Schools’ started back in 2008 when a handful of people, with a heart to make prayer accessible to children, started setting up ‘24-7 style’ creative prayer rooms in their local schools. Four years later and armed with a vision to see prayer spaces in every single schools in the UK, ‘Prayer Spaces in Schools’ is seeing schools turning to prayer in increasing numbers.

Today more than 240 different schools have hosted prayer spaces (only a third of which are ‘church/faith’ schools), with more than a 100,000 children and young people participating in prayer and momentum is showing no signs of slowing. “God do you love me?’ “Why is life hard?” “Can you help me through these hard times?”  - these are just a few of the honest prayers written on the class room walls.

As growth continues, weeks of prayers turn into permanent spaces, Alpha courses take place and schools, churches and Spaces teams looks at how to respond to the prayers that children are praying and how to disciple the next generation.