“In November 2008, Phil Togwell and a small team from a nearby ‘Fresh Expressions’ Methodist Church, re:generation, were invited to host a 24-7-style creative prayer space in an all-girls secondary school (the FE Methodist ministers had been hosting a Christian Union in the school for a few years).

The prayer room was open to all year groups during break-times and lunch-times, and to sixth-formers and staff during their free periods. More than 250 students participated over the course of the week, and the whole school seemed to be buzzing with conversation about the ‘prayer room’. Many of the teachers visited, and the whole admin team came across for a ‘break’ on the Friday after a hectic week. The Head teacher and the Chair of the Board of Governors asked for copies of Phil’s daily blog-report to be passed around all of the Governors.

Although the room was completely, unmanageably packed-out during the lunchtimes, it became clear that students were not distracted from sticking deep, personal prayers onto the Prayer Walls... prayers of ‘sorry’ and forgiveness, ‘please’ prayers and ‘thank you’ prayers. Two sixth formers - both insisting that they didn’t “believe in God” - wept openly as they stood in front of the Be Yourself mirrors, receiving, perhaps for the first time, a sense of love and approval. One wrote afterwards, “To be honest, before I came into this room, I didn’t know if I believed in God or not, but I’ve had an epiphany...”

Six months later, the all-girls school had invited the team to return, and had recommended us to the largest secondary school in the Borough, a mixed, C of E comprehensive. On the first day of the C of E prayer week, we discovered that R.S. classes would be coming to the prayer room during every single lesson. It proved to be tiring and fantastic, an opportunity to focus on 30 students at a time, and to enter into some wonderful conversations with some. Back at the all-girls school a couple of weeks later, the same thing happened - the R.S. lessons opened up opportunities to talk and pray with students. New prayer stations included; the Prayer Chair, the Be Sorry and Be Forgiven zones, and the Big Questions table. All of these worked really well.

Since then, we’ve had invitations and opportunities from six secondary schools in the Borough to host Prayer Spaces, with others expressing interest. And some of the schools that have already hosted a Prayer Space week are considering ways to develop some kind of permanent ‘Prayer Space’ as part of their pastoral structures. All of them are planning future Prayer Space weeks.”
Phil Togwell//24-7 Prayer