Hosting Our First-Ever Prayer Open House at Brookfield CRC

Hello, Network readers! 

I wanted to let you know about something new we tried at our church that was pretty cool. We recently hosted a prayer open house from 10:30 am to 12:00 pm. We set up five prayer stations around the church, complete with cloths, candles, and chairs arranged in semi-circles. The stations were Praise/Thanksgiving, Confession/Assurance of Pardon, Our Church Family, Children and Youth, and Missions/Persecuted Church. We played soft, meditative music and assigned a prayer guide to each station. 

We designed this as a self-guided, family-friendly event. As people entered the church, we had a welcome table set up with coffee—this was very appreciated!—and prayer station packets. The packets had information on each of the prayer stations with scriptures related to the station theme, as well as specific things to pray about. Seeking to be purposefully intergenerational, we included children’s prayer packets as well.

The people who came were free to move from station to station as they felt led to. They could stay at each station as long as felt comfortable and could go to all five stations or only a few.

We didn’t have any idea how this would be received or how many would attend as this has never been done in our church before. We had just over 40 people come through the stations and the feedback was very positive. We are thinking that we would like to do this again, maybe every 6 months or so.

The reason I am sharing this with you is because I wonder if other churches would be interested in doing this as well. I know many churches are working to bring faith formation into a more mainstream place in the church and I am so excited by that.

I just finished training as a spiritual director and feel passionate about walking with people as they grow in depth and maturity in Christ. If you would like more information about this event to share with other churches please let me know.

Pam Chapman

Brookfield CRC in Brookfield, WI