The Prayer Path Labyrinth

November 7, 14, and 21 we used the stations from the Prayer Path Labyrinth.

Candy vs Vegetables

Two weeks ago, with a Sunday on Halloween, we had a dish of candy (not the cheap stuff, but good stuff) and a vegetable tray. We then had a sign that said:

When you have to make a decision how do you know what the best choice is? Can you distinguish between what is good for you and what is just a sweet treat? How often do you take what is easy (sweet) rather than what is best (good for you)?

Draw a picture of Community

This last Sunday, we asked everyone to draw a picture of what 'Community' meant to them & leave their work on the table to be seen by the others...

Behold The Man

on the 17th, we used a flash presentation called 'Ecce Homo' which means behold the man. I was turned on to it at Jonny Baker's blog (see link on left side of this blog) and you can reach the links directly at Ecce Homo. It had a modern art sort of presentation of Christ with a great track of music under it. We just kept it looping all morning at the station...

Conversation

The topic this week was 'Conversation' - from The Story We Find Ourselves In. This dealt with how God speaks to us, and in order to get conversations going, our station contained the following instructions:

Start a conversation with someone
using one of the following starters:
How does God speak to you today?
What has God been saying to you lately?
Tell me about a time God spoke to you.
Where are you in your spiritual journey?

worship ideas website

I found a great website with worship ideas. It is Emerging Minister dot Com. Really good stuff!

Blurry?

We had a sign written with a marker that had the word 'blurs' kind of scribled-in so it looked fuzzy or blurry. The sign said:

What blurs your spiritual vision? Write it down... Pray about it. Ask God to help you see clearly. Then throw the paper away.

We had a stack of papers, pens, and a trash can.

Report Card

We were on the section of 'the story we find ourselves in' that discusses chaos/crisis. We decided to have a self-graded report card with the following:

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Effort Grade: E-Excellent, S-Satisfactory, I-Improving, N-Needs Improvement
Achievement Grad: A-Outstanding, B-Above Average, C-Average, D-Below Average, F-Unsatisfactory

For each of the catagories, give yourself an Achievement grade and an Effort Grade:

Love
Joy
Peace
Patience
Kindness
Goodness
Faithfulness
Gentleness
Self-control

Matthew 5:48 Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
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During the sermon it was mentioned that we all should recognize how we fall short in these areas, but that we are a work in progress - we should not beat ourselves up or be driven to dispair, but rather Love God & Love Others & allow the Holy Spirit to continue to transform us in these areas as we walk with Him - it is a lifetime of growth... (or something like that).

What's On Your Plate?

With the new semester in full swing, we had folks think about what is going on & pray for each other. We had markers, pens, and paper plates. We meant for people to take their plates to other people & pray with one another, but we also wanted people to see a sample of a plate. We made a sample plate & left it at the table. -ends up everybody else left their plate at the table too... Oh well.

Our instruction sheet read:
What's On Your Plate? Write down or draw pictures of what you have on your plate. How you spend your day... What occupies your time... Share your plate with someone else and pray for each other.

Index card/name/creative talent

Last Sunday, to go along with the theme of Creation from The Story We Find Ourselves In, we had a corkboard, some push pins, some index cards, a few pens, and the following instructions.

Write your name on an index card. Write down something you do that is creative. Tack the card to the board.

The responses we got were:

Aaron - I draw
Scott - I pray
Garret - I write poetry
Clara - I pray for people and love them as a Christian friend
Blake - I play random guitar chords
Lindsay - I love to sing!
Ben (the chef) - I put strawberries in the OJ!
Ashlyn - I'm a writer, photographer, and like to think of myself as a motivator
Lina - I sing, dance, and teach
Joshua - I encourage
Kathleen - I play volleyball and watch Lord Of The Rings (29 times)
Sam - I mix ideas - shaken not stirred
Christine - I teach special kids
Aaron - I like to do lights
Brandi - I love to write creatively and I'm a photographer
Lauren - I love to write poetry
Keith - I play the clarinet
Chad - I paint

Jenga!

OK, so I had it wrong... The book we're going through is not Adventures In Missing The Point! It is The Story We Find Ourselves In by Brian McLaren. This week's station was actually for a service two weeks ago, but was not used so we pulled it out for last Sunday.

Here's the setup... A Jenga tower and a sign with the following:

Pull a piece or two out of this Jenga tower & place them at the top.
Can you see how unstable it will become as it's foundation continues to be eroded?

The Look Book

We wanted to do a station about seeing the 'big picture' since we've just started a series on Adventures In Missing The Point. So, we found this website, Mystery Photos, where you see a picture, guess what it is, then see the 'big picture'. Really cool - wanted to use lots of their photos, then saw the legal note: COPYRIGHT NOTICE All photos on this site are copyrighted -- you may NOT post these images on any public forum or reproduce them in any form!

SO, we borrowed The Look Book from our local library, set it on a table and included the following guide: How well do you see the 'big picture?' Flip through this book and see if you can guess what each photo is before turning the page to reveal it... Don't peek until you give up.

Take a Band-Aid...

Today's station idea came from some guy that did a talk for my mother-in-law's church's sunday school teachers, etc... We had a few pens, a pile of band-aids, and a small trash can & the following instructions:

Take a band-aid.
Take off the wrapper and write your name on the top of the band-aid.
Find someone and tell them about a hurt that they can see (a scratch, a bruise, a bump) and how you got it.
Then tell them about a hurt that can’t be seen.
Give them the band-aid with your name on it so they can wear it.
Every-time they see it they should pray for you and your hurt.
Offer to get them a band-aid.

So I did the station, and later during the service, found myself a bit weepy/emotional about the whole thing - somehow verbalizing my current hurt brought it to the surface in a pretty big way. Not what I expected, but I hope it was as impactful for the others who participated...

The Fan

I'm not sure where we got this idea... but it wasn't ours. We had a fan on a table and the following sign. "Move across the air stream from the fan. Feel the full force of the air. Imagine this is the Holy Spirit moving in your life. Are you ready to stand at the center of God's will for you? Talk to God. Pray."

The World As A Village

For August 8th we had a sheet with "Take a Sheet. Take a guess. Take a Peek." We had a pile of sheets with "The World As A Village. If we reduced the world's population to a village of 100 people, would you recognize it? Use the percentages on the right side of the page to fill in the blanks to the left of each category." It had one column of categories, and another where you would write in the percentages you think are right, and then a selection of percentages you can choose from. The we had a closed notebook. On the outside it said, "Answer to statistics sheet under here..." Inside was the answer key with the following statistics:
Females 49%, English Speaking 9%, Children 33%, Suffering from malnutrition 50%, Over the age of 65 6%, Living in substandard housing 80%, Asians 59%, No access to drinking water 66%, Persons of color 70%, Lesbian or gay 10%, Christians 30%, College-educated 1%, Own half the village's wealth 6%.