Many people associate praying with going to Church or another special place where they can feel at peace. Although we can pray to God anywhere, you might find going somewhere that is set aside as being 'for prayer' helpful in focusing your mind.
But where do you spend most time? It could be a good idea to think about how you can make that into a place for prayer.
My son spends large amounts of time on the computer game Minecraft. So we wondered - could Minecraft be somewhere you can pray?
So this experiment involves creating a prayer space on Minecraft (or another world building game).
Think about what your ideal place for prayer would be. Where would it be? What would it look like? How big would it be? What would you do there?
Now go online and have a go! Once you've built it, try spending there praying. Is it any different to being in a chapel, church, or prayer space in the real world? If so, how?
Noah's Review:
I didn't want to build a massive cathedral but I wanted something fairly big. I made it look like a traditional church, because that is what my church looks like: I was sort of trying to create my version of our local church. Because its a nice church and makes me think about God, because its got the right kind of atmosphere.
So I made a church building, with a nave and the altar, choir stalls, at least 50 pews, a bell tower and stained glass windows. I built it facing East-West, so the sun would come up through the big window over the altar.
During the build dad and I were more thinking about what to build, but towards the end I was thinking about the stuff in the church when I was putting in the details - the pews, and the pulpit, and so on. I was thinking about how it is all designed to face the front and wondering whether that is a good thing or not. It makes you focus on what the vicar has to say, but because it makes everyone focus on the front they might miss some of the other lovely bits of the church that people put lots of effort into building.
At the end I had a little bit of pray. I got a vicar skin (costume) for my character, and did a short service in the church as the vicar. It was just me and my younger brother, with him being the congregation. First, we sang one verse of 'Nearer my God to thee' (which we remembered from the film Titanic). Then I went up into the pulpit and told the story of Jesus asking the Samaritan woman for water at the well (we'd done that reading in Junior Church that morning), and I ended by asking my brother a question about the reading. He answered, and then he left and I went and stood in front of the altar looking at the big window. Then I took my hands off the keyboard and said a few prayers. When I was praying I wasn't looking at the Minecraft screen, I was praying in real life.
Marks:
Ease of use: 2/10 It took me two hours to build it even with help from my dad!
Spiritual value: 7.5/10 It did make me pray, but during the building I wasn't thinking about god but about the details of the building.
