Living Open Source

The Diary Room on day 2 and 3 continued to be a place where people in their hundreds paused to think about life and their relationships with others, and then prayed.

A simple concept, and a rather unimpressive diary room, but the whole thing caught people’s imaginations. We have spent the whole weekend leading people (and mostly under 25s) to prayer. We have collected nearly 1000 written prayers at one of the prayer stations. The majority of these prayers were deep heart felt prayers and responses from people suggest they had been really helped by being given the opportunity to pray in this way.
Teenage lads, overcoming the peer pressure to pray and then to talk about God. Families coming with children to leave prayers in the basket. A group of soldiers from the local regiment discussing who they get on best with. Young people leaving prayers for world peace. There are many stories of how people have engaged with the diary room this weekend and through it encountered God.
I learnt this weekend that people are not afraid to talk about God and even to pray, but are very afraid of The Church. I also found that young people are far more open to the gospel than older generations. Older folk often wouldn’t come near the diary room either because they were put off by the Big Brother theme, or fearful of letting barriers down, or more often, when told we were from the churches in St Helens, ran a mile!

Overall there is no doubt that this has been highly effective and surpassed all expectations. In all nearly 2000 people sat in our scruffy leather chair and were prompted to think about life and God.

If you are interested in using this idea, I can make the artwork and prayer station material available. Just get in touch.