Prayer Stations

Our middle school and high school ministry is utilizing a new space in our building after our services on Wednesday nights. The church has been so gracious to us by moving a large and important family dinner to another night so we can have more space, more time, and more options to connect with teenagers.

Our team came up with a weekly rotation for the room.

Week 1- Grade/Gender Groups: led by our leaders, provides time to respond to the message
Week 2- Games: we've scheduled out group games until June. What a load off! Love having this done in advance.
Week 3-Grade/ Gender Groups: building relationships is a major value, so we'll do this twice a month
Week 4- Prayer Stations: changing up response times to give different types of students/ learning styles space to learn, create, grow, and change.

When there is a month with 5 weeks, we'll play more games. Who doesn't want to have fun for awesome prizes?

The reason for my post.
I'd like to hear some creative ideas for prayer stations.
We've done a ton over the years but when I ask my friends I always get better ideas than I could think of on my own.

Here are some of the stations titles I came up with today. We may not use every station every time, but they give us a good base to build on. Each month the action of the station will change but the purpose of the station will not.

Relax
Renew
Remember
Respond
Rebel
Receive
Reconnect

To start, we'll have communion available at the RECEIVE station. At REBEL, a student can jot out in red ink anxiety, anger, problems (God hears our bleeding hearts). At RENEW, a basin of water for hands and feet to be washed clean (realizing that God does this in our hearts).

This is the train of thought today. I'd love to hear other station ideas that have worked or that have been meaningful to you and your group. Please comment if you'd like to share an idea!

The Easter game that woke you up at 6AM

There is a calendar. We look at it often. Yet coming up with a fun upfront Easter game is something I waited until today, the week of Easter to do. I plan our teaching calendar months in advance. Sometimes I wish I planned out our games months in advance.
But there's always something else (let's say...relationships) that bump the game planning out of the day spot and into night time dreaming.

I woke up thinking. It's the Wednesday before Easter. What shall we play?

I like games that are laughable but not humiliating, simple as to be inclusive, and cheap--to save money for more important things, like ice cream and boneless wings.

Here's what I came up with, just in case you woke up wondering the same thing.

Eggstra Rad Bunny Rush (that's fancy for relay race)

Get a a couple of poster boards for two teams. Cut out giant Easter eggs from each poster sheet.
Give each team to giant eggs.
The teams start on the same side of the room and one at a time, each player bunny hops from eggs as one is placed in front of the other all the way across the room. Players, once they've reached the other side can return the eggs to the next person in line (but they really should hop instead of run, right!?)
The first team with everyone on the other side of the room wins.

Prizes:
The winning team gets the good things that can be found in an EASTER BASKET (packs of gum, giant chocolate bunnies, etc)
The losing team gets lame things that can be found in an EASTER BASKET (Tums, a nightlight...just use whatever you have laying around)

**If you've got them on hand, or have a local dollar store, you could pick up some bunny ears to make the iPhone pics even better.

Hope this saves you some time today or this weekend.

By the way, there is a similar game found on the UK's youth group games website--a great resource to consider!