Tim Abbott

Sanctum prayer room - day 5

Thanks to Marie for reminding me to finish the Sanctum story.

Friday was another good day with just the right number of peole visiting at break time and lunch time. We also had quite a few staff through during the quiet moments, including most of the office staff, who loved it! At the end of the day we had four young people come, some for the first time, and the ensuing conversations meant it was well past 4pm before we could begin packing up.

We had over 150 visits during the week, loads of conversations about God and prayer, and many opportunities to share our faith naturally in response to questions. So what have learnt from this, our second Sanctum prayer room in school?

Young people accept and respect what's going on, even if they struggle to engage with it beyond the superficial. There's no doubt that just about everyone recognised it as a 'special place'.

Most young people struggle to articulate the spiritual because they do not have safe opportunities to do so. But when presented with something like 'Sanctum' they readily speak up about their thoughts and experiences. Some expressed a genuine gratitude to us for running Sanctum in their school.

An obvious point, but students get greatest benefit from the activities when someone explains it to them and then chats to them about it afterwards, developing a greater depth of understanding and reflection.

If we're to do a Sanctum 2, as some staff and students requested, we're going to have to work on some new material. This is also true of the possibility of taking a version of Sanctum into the Sixth Form College.

We don't yet have any further bookings, beyond previous expressions of interest. But from our experience of two very different schools I know we're doing the right thing.

Sanctum prayer room - days 3 & 4

Wednesday was another exciting day in the Sanctum prayer room as over 25 young people visited including some returning for a third time. The day felt somehow calmer than the first two, as if the novelty had worn off and the young people were beginning engage with the place in a more thoughtful way.

During the day we researched the idea of running Thursday as a Year 10 & 11 day, but drew a blank when it came to an effective way of promoting this with just a day's notice. There's still a lot of interest from staff who say they want to pop in.

Today, Thursday, we met as a team to pray before opening for break time. After three days when we've typically had about 8 in each break time we were staggered that no-one came! However, after break our prayer that Year 10 & 11's would find us were answered when two Year 11 girls came in to take some pictures for the school as part of a project. Although they couldn't stay for long, we chatted to them about what Sanctum is all about and they promised to send all their friends at lunch time.

At lunchtime about 18 Year 11's poured in and got stuck in to the various prayer activities. As we had suspected, they engaged really purposefully in the different activities and we ended up in some very honest and open conversations about God and faith. They absolutely loved it and made some very thoughtful responses. By way of contrast, after school one girl came in on her own and did the whole sequence of nine prayer activities, was very grateful and then left to go home.

Tomorrow is the last day in this school. I'm reminded that it was on the last day of the feast that Jesus stood up and made himself known to the crowds. May it be so on Friday. Amen. Come Lord Jesus.

[Photo: by me and with permission of the school]

The influence of TV

The all pervasive influence of TV has claimed another victim.

My 19 year old beer connoisseur son has been watching back to back episodes of Frasier and has thus been inspired to start drinking sherry. As a responsible father I have felt it necessary to help him in his research.

We need a revolution of the self

Wise words from Mark Sayers about what's missing in our conversation about the reimagining of church.

Sanctum prayer room - day 2

Although break is only effectively 10 minutes long here, we still had five young people visit briefly to take part in one or two of the stations, some picking up from where they left off yesterday.

At lunchtime we had 18 in, which is pretty much the limit. More than this and there's too many people trying to do any one prayer activity and it all feels a bit frantic. It already felt mildly frantic but we had myself, Tom, Joel (a local church youth worker) and the four members of Collective which meant we could each spend a bit more time with some of the young people guiding them through the different activities and chatting to them further about the possibility of a relationship with God.

Whilst the nine activities themselves create space for spiritual reflection, it's this personal contact with the Prayer Room Guides that makes the real difference. One lad opened up from not speaking to enthusiastically engaging in the different activities thanks to the sensitive nurturing of one of todays helpers.

A couple of girls came in after school and spent about 15 minutes catching up with sections they'd missed earlier. To end the day friends from the Colchester Boiler Room and Andrea from 24-7 Prayer joined us and took some time to try out the Sanctum experience. We prayed together for the young people and the school.

One thing we may try is to make Thursday a Year 10 & 11 day. We've seen a lot of KS3 students, but only a few KS4 students have poked their heads round the door so far. The different stations have been designed with them in mind, and although we've been impressed with the way the younger students have interacted with Sanctum, we'd like to test it with the older students.

Sanctum prayer room - day 1

This week we're running the second 'Sanctum' prayer room in school. The first week was at another school back in July.

I'm really interested to see how this week goes. The first went amazingly well; students responded well and Sanctum made a real impact on many of them - something that came through both from their written comments and conversations afterwards. So it's always fascinating to try the same thing out somewhere different - I have a feeling we'll learn a lot more about engaging young people in spirituality as a result.

Compared to last time the school we're in this week has a different demographic, is much smaller and we'll have students from Year 7 to 11. Last time we only had Years 7 to 9 because Year 10 were on Work Experience and Year 11 had left after exams.

Anyway, we set up this morning, including being able to pop into assembly to remind students Sanctum was happening. We're in a slightly bigger room than last time, but away from the main thoroughfares upstairs in an old RE room. Would people find us?

We opened at lunchtime and no sooner had the bell gone than four young people were bursting in to get started. Followed by another five shortly afterwards, then a load more. In all we had 17 students taking part and they all loved it, in a slightly hectic sort of way. Which got me thinking.

We know from Sanctum in July that for many young people slowing down a bit and taking even a little time to be still makes a real impact on them and for some connects them to a better understanding of God. But what of the ADHD generation? I think we had a few in today. One of the narrated activities on an mp3 player lasts only 4 minutes and includes something to do as part of the activity, but even this challenged the attention span of some young people! Between the obvious extremes of adapting entirely to an attention deficient generation or holding out for the few who can engage with a more reflective spirituality, we're attempting to strike a balance with a generous variety of activities that engage young people where they are but stretch their experience into a new place that has the potential to surprise them. We shall see.

Whose Priorities Are You Working On?

Great advice here from Phil Cooke  about managing the pressure to conform to other people's priorities. The killer for me was this;

"It takes nearly a half an hour to get back on track after a typical interruption.  So you can see how few interruptions it takes to ruin your entire day."

I work in an office where there can sometimes be eight of us - me, a schools-worker colleague, a student youth worker, a four piece girl band and a part time finance manager. The possibilities for "typical interruption" are overwhelming.

Prayer Rooms in Schools & 24-7 Prayer

Yesterday I popped into London to meet up with Phil Togwell at the City of London Boiler Room, part of the 24-7 Prayer network. We were there to discuss prayer rooms in schools and I was updating him with what we are doing here in Colchester with Sanctum, our school prayer room project. I'm meeting today with another Deputy Head to finalise details of Sanctum in her school during the week beginning 22nd September.

We shared some of our respective stories and what we know of the few situations where something similar seems to be happening. We're aware of groups who have done prayer rooms for schools in Chichester and Ryton on Tyneside, but that's about it. However, there's definitely something new going on and we're wondering if anyone else out there in the UK has had a go at running a prayer room of any sort specifically in connection with a school. If that's you, or you know someone who has, please get in touch with me or with Phil. We might sort out an opportunity later in the autumn to get together to share stories and maybe reflect a bit theologically and educationally.

Todd Bentley

C Peter Wagner's update on Todd Bentley/Florida  over on Mark Berry's blog. Much needed wisdom, balance and grace in good measure at a time when confusion and judgement seem to be doing the rounds.

I'm still away really (off to Wales again this evening).

; )

Death Star over San Fransisco

I'm away, back home, and away again quite a bit this summer, so blogging is taking a bit of a break.
But I love this!