Prayer Stations

 

Once a quarter we have Prayer Stations. Prayer Stations are prayer exercises. We do this to help create space for more of Jesus in your life. The simple practice of prayer is the easiest way to connect to God and to the things of God. We have prepared 5 different creative prayer stations around the campus around the theme of Lent. We have provided a guide for each station. Most prayer activities can be done alone, with a partner or within a group.

Visiting?

If you are a visitor, welcome to Risen! We are so glad that you can join us this unique Sunday. If you are interested in getting connected or simply want to know more about Risen, please fill out our digital connect card and we will follow up. We also invite you to join in and engage with as much as you are comfortable with today in the prayer activities.

 
 

Prayer Guide

LOCATION: Courtyard

Jesus lived 33 years. Thirty-three years of hiddenness, labor, misunderstanding, love, sorrow, joy, and perseverance.

In the middle of struggle, the days can feel unbearably long. We wonder if this season will ever end. And yet, when we look back, we see how quickly it all passes.

ACTIVITY:

  1. Look at the old photographs around the tree. Think about what was happening 30 years ago. The hairstyles, the clothes, the technology, so much has changed. What feels heavy and urgent today will one day be a memory held in God’s larger story.

  2. Take a card. Write down what you are concerned about right now. What is weighing on you? Then write what you are anticipating.

  3. What are you longing for?

  4. When you are ready, hang your card from the twine on the tree.As you do, remember: Every single day of your life is held by our God. 

LOCATION: Bungalows

The Lenten season mirrors the 40 days that Jesus Christ spent in the wilderness before beginning his public ministry (Matthew 4, Luke 4). During those forty days, he was tempted, tested, and yet remained faithful. Lent invites Christians to walk with him in that wilderness space—stripping away distractions, confronting temptation, and preparing our hearts for what God wants to do. As you walk the "wilderness" path through the school, look for the pictures that represent Jesus' time in the wilderness and follow the prompts. 

THE DESERT

READ: “Jesus, full of the Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil.” (Luke 4:1-2)

Deserts are periods of confusion, doubt, suffering, loneliness, grief, and anxiety. However, deserts are not a punishment. As uncomfortable as they may be, they are part of the geography of life, meaning they are part of living in a fallen world.

ACTIVITY:

  1. Look at this picture of a desert. Where are you experiencing the desert right now? (Desert of anxiety? Desert of loneliness? Desert of sorrow?) 

  2. Take some time to think about it, name it and write it down. Share with others what it feels like to be in this desert if you are doing this activity with a group.

LEAD BY THE SPIRIT

READ: “Jesus, full of the Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil.” (Luke 4:1-2)

A great lesson Lent teaches us is that we have as much to gain from emptiness as we do from fullness. There are many desert seasons in everyday Christian life, and unless we learn that these are part of the journey and part of Jesus’ experience too, we will try to escape them as quickly as possible, perhaps missing what the Spirit has led us there for. In the story, the Spirit is the one who leads Jesus into the desert. Jesus did not go into the desert to be punished or as an endurance test. It was a place to meet with God and to face what God wanted for him. If you find yourself in a desert, you are in good company. Jesus was there too.

ACTIVITY:

  1. Look at this picture of a Desert Rose. It only blooms once every five years. It takes 5 years in a perfectly hostile environment to produce one of the rarest flowers that few people ever see. You can find comfort in that. The Christian life is not always a fertile, green space of growth. There are times when the Spirit leads you into a place of desert where growth does not seem to be happening but it might be exactly where God wants you, in order to help you focus on something in your life that needs attention. 

  2. What in the desert does God want you to focus on? Write it down and spend some time talking to God about it. Share with others if you are doing this activity with a group. 

FORTY DAYS

READ: “Jesus, full of the Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil.” (Luke 4:1-2)

Forty is a significant number throughout the Bible. The Israelites wandered for forty years. Moses fasted for forty days. During the flood, it rained for forty days while Noah was in the ark. And Jesus fasted for forty days in the wilderness.

The number forty also arises from the natural world in the forty weeks of gestation. It represents a time of discomfort that leads to release and relief, life!. Lent is about new life, but it does not come without nausea, agony, distress, and confusion. New life is always preceded by a season of discomfort.

Lent prepares us for Easter, where we celebrate new life in Jesus. The point of Lent is Jesus. What you receive is Jesus.

ACTIVITY:

  1. In the desert place you have named/ identified, what would it look like for Jesus to show up there? What would that feel like? What would change? 

  2. Write it down and spend some time talking to God about it. Share with others if you are doing this activity with a group. 

LOCATION: Blacktop near entrance

Palm Sunday is the day we remember that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey — not on a war horse, not with an army, but in humility and peace. The crowds waved palm branches and shouted “Hosanna!” They celebrated what they hoped would be a political rescue, a victory on their terms. But within days, many realized that what they were hoping for was not what they were receiving. Their Rescuer had come — but not in the way they expected.

Today, we hold palm branches in our hands as well. These branches represent both celebration and surrender. They remind us that we, too, carry expectations. We, too, have hopes about how God should act. Jesus is not distant from you. He is not surprised by your disappointment. He carries it with you.

ACTIVITY:

  1. Take a palm branch from the ground, write a disappointment you are carrying — a prayer that felt unanswered, a door that closed, a relationship that changed, a hope that did not unfold the way you thought it would.

  2. Bring that disappointment forward and lay it down with the other palm branches. As you do, remember:

    1. “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7

    2. “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalms 34:18

LOCATION: Lunch Arbor

When It Seems Like All Is Lost: Remember

Jesus’s friends, women and men who had followed him for years and had believed that he was the longed-for Messiah, had just watched him die. This was an end they would never have imagined. Still, in order to stop the Romans from burying him in a disgraced pauper’s grave, two of his heartbroken friends took his lifeless body and prepared it to return back to the dust. They covered it with linen and spices, meant to mask the terrible smell of death.

They had no understanding or hope that this wasn’t the end of the story. All they could see was tragedy and loss. They left Him there, covered in spice, and went away grieving.

ACTIVTY:

  1. Read: 38 Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jewish leaders. With Pilate’s permission, he came and took the body away. 39 He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds. 40 Taking Jesus’ body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41 At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42 Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there (John 19:38-42)

  2. Construct: Take one of the black felt crosses and choose some drops of fragrant oils to drop on it. Put the cross and one brown Scripture card into the purple bag. (Purple is the church’s color for the crucifixion.)

  3. Pray: Spend time now asking the Lord to help you remember that even though circumstances might seem hopeless, it is never beyond his power to restore.

  4. Remember: Whenever you face heartbreak and feel as though there’s no hope, spend time reminding yourself of Christ’s resurrection out of death. You can do that by smelling these oils and remembering how everything can change in an instant. You can have hope.

LOCATION: MPR

Easter changes everything. Because of the resurrection,God launches a renewed world, where heaven and earth are being brought back together. Easter is the invitation to step into that new life and become people who live from resurrection, not just believe in it.

ACTIVITY:

  1. Find a place to sit. Watch pictures of Easter celebrated around the World.

  2. Consider and reflect on some of the ways that Easter has changed your life; changed the world.