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 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.

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.

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.