[This resource was updated in 2024 with refreshed sheets.]

These prayer stations have been designed for an all-age Good Friday service at Spring Harvest 2015.  We are planning to do about 25 minutes opening 'up-front' input with singing and interactive teaching.  Then we will hand out these prayer stations in bags.  We want people to get into groups - families, or just groups with the people around them - and engage with these 'modular' prayer stations for as long as they like.  Once they are done they can pack the bits back into the bag, and go and swap it for a different one.  We think we'll do this for about 20 minutes and then bring people back together for a final act of gathered worship.

This 'modular' way of doing the activities should encourage discussion between the families/groups, and remove the need to have people move around the room.  However, if you prefer you could set these up in a more regular format, or use fewer of the activities all together.

The instructions below list enough resources for one of each bag - multiply by the number of bags/groups you predict will attend.

MIRROR

You will need:

  • A hand mirror
  • A white-board pen
  • A sponge cut into a cross shape
  • Instruction sheet

Instructions:

  1. Take it in turns to look at your faces in the mirror.  Remind each other - ‘You are God’s masterpiece!’ (Eph 2:10).
  2. Talk about the things which you do wrong - sins, selfish things, attitudes which are not God’s best.  Write them on the mirror in pen.
  3. Pray to say sorry for these things. 
  4. Use the cross shaped sponge to wipe the mirror clean again.
  5. Pray and thank Jesus for dying to clean our sins away.

Scripture:

Eph 2:9-10 (NLT) Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
 
PLAY-DOUGH
 
You will need:
  • Balls of play-dough (bought or home-made)
  • Instruction sheet

Instructions:

  1. Each take a piece of play-dough, and make an image of yourself.  It could be literally what you look like, or an image of how you feel.
  2. One person make a ‘Jesus’ model out of the same play-dough. Read the verses below, and talk about how Jesus knows what it is like to be one of us - made of the same stuff.
  3. Pray - thank Jesus that he knows what it is like to be you, and that he died as ‘one of us’.

Scripture:

Phil 2:7-8 (MSG) When the time came, [Jesus]... became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
 
WORLD
 
You will need:
  • Printouts of globes or world maps (on A3, colour)
  • A4 card
  • Pens
  • Glue stick
  • Large plain cross at front of church, which groups can add their collages to
  • Instruction sheet

Instructions:

  1. Talk about the problems that there are in the world, and write them on the world picture.
  2. Tear up the picture to show the brokenness of our planet. 
  3. Read the passage below. Pray that we would see some of the putting-back-together of all things, as God works through his people in the world.
  4. Make a new picture by sticking your ‘world’ pieces onto the card, then take it and add it to the big cross shape at the front.
Scripture:
Col 1:20 (MSG) all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross.
 
BREAD AND WINE
 
You will need:
  • Bread roll
  • Carton of grape juice, with straws or cups
  • Instruction sheet

Instructions:

  1. Take out the bread, and talk about what this means to you. How do you think Jesus is ‘the bread of life’?
  2. Take out the grape juice, a symbol of the wine that Jesus compared to his blood. How does his blood make us right with God?
  3. Eating and drinking bread and wine together makes us one in Jesus.  Share the food and drink, with prayers of thanks.

Scripture:

1 Cor 10:16-17 (MSG) When we drink the cup of blessing, aren’t we taking into ourselves the blood, the very life, of Christ? And isn’t it the same with the loaf of bread we break and eat? Don’t we take into ourselves the body, the very life, of Christ? Because there is one loaf, our many-ness becomes one-ness - Christ doesn’t become fragmented in us. Rather, we become unified in him.
 
CREATIVE WRITING
 
You will need:
  • Paper and pens
  • Instruction sheet

Instructions:

  1. Talk about what Good Friday means to you. What do you think is Good about Jesus’ death on the cross?  Write down words or phrases people use.
  2. Turn your phrases into a poem, prayer, rap or other creative writing. Work on it together.  
  3. When you’ve finished, take the poem to one of the leaders - it might get used at the end of the worship time.

 

MAZE

You will need:

  • Pens
  • Instruction sheet

Instructions:

  1. Jesus died to open the door to heaven for us.  Heaven is where God is completely present, and his ways are followed perfectly.  Follow the paths below to see which leads to life with God.

  2. The Bible says: ‘By his death, Jesus opened a new life-giving way’ into God’s presence (Heb 10:20).

    Do you want to go through the door to life with God?  All you need to do is put your trust in Jesus.  As a sign of this, you can write your name on this door, or draw a picture of yourself.
    Pray and thank Jesus for opening the way to heaven for you, and anyone who asks him.