“In July 2008 a team from Revelation Church were invited to take part in the Exploration Day at Bishop Luffa Secondary School in Chichester. During this day normal time table was suspended and each year group divided the day in two to explore two subjects more fully. The Religious Education (RE) department invited us to set up an example 24-7 Prayer room for the students to enjoy and to lead classes on why we believed in prayer, how 24-7 Prayer rooms worked and ways in which people interacted with them. They also provided us with the learning aims for each class and asked that we touch on them if possible.

We designed a 24-7 Prayer room with creative prayer stations for the students to interact with and a 30 minute lesson on 24-7 Prayer and it's affects around the globe. In the lesson we used films from the 24-7 international website, and photos and testimonies from prayer rooms. We submitted our prayer room and lesson plan to the school in advance and highlighted where the activities or teaching touched on their learning aims.

Each class was with us for an hour and spent 10 minutes in an introductory session, then split in two and alternated between 20 minutes experiencing the prayer room and 20 minutes of further teaching and discussion. We ended the session gathering all the students back together to get their thoughts on what they had experienced. This structure worked very well for the constraints we were under: the prayer room was small so only worked effectively with ten people and though every student wanted more time in the prayer room we were pleased we were able to give everyone an opportunity to pray.

The feedback from the day was excellent. The prayer room was filled with prayers for families, forgiveness and relief of stress in the academic environment. Each group wanted more time in the prayer room and some returned in break times to continue interacting. The only negative feedback the school received was from other students who heard about the room and were annoyed they weren't free to participate. The RE department even asked to keep our display of photos and testimonies so they could show it to other classes. We have formed a good relationship with them now and they have expressed a desire to involve us in other areas of the curriculum."
Carla Harding//24-7 Prayer