Teenage Prayer Experiment at Greenbelt

We've been to Greenbelt! Noah and I were very chuffed to be asked to do three sessions: a talk about writing the book collaboratively in the Literature strand of the festival, and two Experiment sessions in the Youth venue.

Noah at our book signing

We were joined in the Youth venue by our friend Anne Bennett, who has tried many of these ideas out with the young offenders she works with. She also brought new ideas that she had developed.

The Den at Greenbelt: youth silently doing prayer experiments

We had a great time, especially in the sessions in the youth venue, the Den! We tried four of the experiments over the weekend.


First, we tried Bible colouring. We printed out several individual sheets from http://flamecreativekids.blogspot.co.uk/
(these are free to use).

Bible colouring table with youth concentrating hard

We also had a design from http://www.lindisfarne-scriptorium.co.uk/ (which we bought a copyright licence for from the website) printed onto an A0 banner which everyone joined together in colouring in with sharpies. This led to an hour of almost freakish near-silence in the Den! And it was beautiful.

Second, we used an idea that Anne had developed using air-drying clay. Originally, this idea came about at Christmas: she had set up a nativity scene in the YOI chapel, and invited the lads to make a simple clay figure representing themselves, and add it to the scene. For Greenbelt, to be on-theme, she created a 'Bright Field', with Jesus teaching the Sermon on the Mount, and we invited all the young people to make a figure of themselves and add it to the crowd listening. There was a large poster with the bullet points of the Sermon on the Mount, and you were invited to imagine hearing it for the first time as you placed your figure.

Girl placing a clay figure onto green 'field' to add to the field of people listening to the Sermon on the Mount

Third, we had labyrinths - a wooden one, a felt one, and paper photocopies to colour in or follow round with a pen. And finally, prayer beads - we were literally wrestling these away from the young people when we ran out of time at the end of the allotted slot!

Hand following a labyrinth with a pen whilst wearing prayer beads

Prayer beads

Clay modelling

Highlights were a girl telling me she was going into lower sixth and would thus be leading her school Christian Union, and would it be all right if she used the book (of course!!), watching boys and girls of all ages from about 10 to about 17 concentrating in almost total silence on colouring in their bible passages, the glee with which people made their clay figures and the awe with which they placed them, and a boy of about 15 explaining to me the changes he had made to the bead bracelet design and why, so that the beads represented the things he most wanted to pray about.

 Oh, and the book sold out in G-Books!

We were asked by the staff in the Youth venue if we would go back next year. I very much hope so!

Views from the Pews

Reviews and reflections on the Teenage Prayer Experiment are beginning to come in, so I thought it might be helpful to note them here.

Here is a blog from London diocese about the launch event we there, and the experience of trying out some of the experiments: trying out the Teenage Prayer Experiment in London diocese.


And there is a full page review on page 3 of the Edinburgh Diocese Children's and Youth work newsletter this month: find the pdf here and turn the page!

The Teenage Prayer Experiment

We've made a youtube video about the Teenage Prayer Experiment! With thanks to members of St Mary Magdalene Church youth club, and Belmont Scouts, for their comments. Filming by the youth group and I, video editing by Keith Blundy of Aegis Associates.

Exclusive sneak preview!

We now have a publication date for the Teenage Prayer Experiment Notebook: April 16th!

 (If you can't wait until then, or want to be sure you get a copy that day, you can pre-order a copy here!

In honour of this exciting news, here is an exclusive sneak preview of some of the lovely inside design, from the galley proofs:

Book coming soon!

PUBLISHED IN APRIL: The Teenage Prayer Experiment Notebook 

 Written by myself and Noah Threlfall-Holmes, my 13 year old son, this book began life as this blog exploring different methods of prayer: I came up with the ideas and he reviewed them. We then found lots of youth groups were using the blog, and we have now gathered feedback and comments on all the various ideas from a wide variety of teenagers from all over the country.

This book is an interactive prayer journal designed for teenagers to use: it encourages you to not just read about prayer, but give it a go, and then review the experience.

An ideal Easter gift or confirmation gift for any teens in your life, or great for a church youth group to work through together.

You can Pre-Order it on Amazon here!

Colouring In: More Feedback

The book is being designed, proofed and prepared for publication as we speak! 

The best thing about putting all this together to be an actual book (a very interactive prayer journal for teenagers to have a go), has been getting feedback from a much wider group of teens than we had first imagined. We thought this would just be Noah and I doing this on our own, but youth groups around the country have been getting involved, as well as individual teenagers.

So I thought you might like to see some of the comments from this wider group, that are going into the book.

Here, for example, is some more people's views having tried the Colour In Your Prayers experiment .

(Noah's initial review is here). 

8/10    I found that doing this really made the passage speak to me. It made me feel that God could really speak to me through his word, and it was a good way to help me focus on what God was saying. It might be an improvement next time to have a small space on the page to just draw anything God gave to you. (Jonny, 14)

8/10       I coloured in the Lord's Prayer. I would give it 8 out of 10 because it really helped me concentrate on what each word meant as I coloured them and it also helps to link the Lord's Prayer into my own life.

(Samantha, 16)

7/10    When I tried this experiment I found that it was very fun, but I still felt that the prayer was sinking in and it made me think of it in a new way. It made me feel relaxed. The thing I liked best was the simpleness of it. Next time I would try using a more memorable quotation, with less of the background image and more focus on just the words.

(Rachel, 15)

5/10     I found I often stopped paying attention to the task at hand, and I didn't feel anything. I liked the colouring, but didn't find it very engaging.

(Luke, 16)

Noah's Review of Breathing Meditation

9/10

This was definitely not as easy as some of the other experiments but it was a very nice experience.

I did get distracted and kept finding myself being sidetracked. For the first few minutes, I was just sitting there concentrating on my breathing. That was probably the most relaxing bit. Then coming out of that I started thinking about God, because thinking about breathing made me think about God designing us and making us, and how complicated a process even breathing is. Then I found myself thinking about other stuff - like school and so on and then when I realised that I’d got distracted I started using the Jesus prayer. That was very helpful, because saying the prayer did help come back to focusing on the breathing. Then for a while I started actually praying even though I wasn’t meant to, but all through I was concentrating on inhaling and exhaling, and that started affecting what I was praying for. So I prayed for all the usual stuff like friends, family and conflicts, and then I prayed for people who sometimes found it hard to breath, who had lung diseases and so on, and that led me on to praying for sick people in general.

I didn’t have an alarm handy, so I stopped when I thought I’d done 10 minutes but I think it was more like 7 or 8 minutes actually!

I will probably do this again, because at the end of the time I felt so peaceful and refreshed, like I’d just woken up from a really good sleep. After I got up I felt really relaxed and invigorated.