24/7 Prayer
Experience // Print // Created for Crossroads Bible Church
Objective: Plan quarterly weeks of churchwide 24 hour prayer, and curate Crossroads’ prayer room in preparation for each prayer week.
Audience: Crossroads attendees and guests.
Solution: Another teammate and I were tasked with designing prayer stations around each quarter’s theme, as well as creating a welcoming environment for volunteers who signed up to pray.
The original design of the prayer room felt very clinical and impersonal, and we wanted it to feel much more inviting and comfortable: somewhere you would want to curl up with a book or journal for a long time. We added warm, ambient lighting, lots of pillows and blankets to soften the feeling of the space.
I also worked to make the space feel accessible to anyone, whether they’d spent hours in prayer rooms, or never set foot in one before. To create a welcoming, peaceful environment, I hooked up a speaker to play soft worship music as people entered. At the entrance to the room, volunteers would encounter a sign welcoming them, with a few guidelines if they needed some direction.
I made sure that tea and coffee were available for late night prayers volunteers.
To engage all of the different ways that people connect with God, I included many kinds of mediums for people to engage with, including art supplies, maps to stick prayers to, physical acts like taking communion/nailing confessions to a large wooden cross.
On the coffee table, we had a community journal for people to record their prayers/art in. A guitar with sheets of music sat in a corner for those who needed to sing their prayers. Volunteers were encouraged to write their praise to God on the walls in permanent marker. One entire wall with wooden slats was dedicated for for people to insert their written prayers for others. Artwork for people to contemplate.
Prior to each prayer week, my team would meet to discuss the season’s themes and prayer focus, and I would design an experience that centered on that theme, leading prayer volunteers through different stations around the room.
I wrote and designed the prayer prompts and signage that would be posted along the walls at each prayer station.
Examples
For our first week of 24/7 prayer, we started off 2024 by kicking off this new seasonal prayer rhythm. We used the Lord’s Prayer as the base for each prayer station:
Hallowed Be Your Name: Worshipping God for who He is. People wrote out their praises to God on a large sheet of kraft paper hung on the wall.
Your Kingdom Come: Intercession for our city and the world. We placed maps of Grand Rapids and the world along one wall, and encouraged people to place post-it notes on the areas they prayed for.
Your Will Be Done: Surrender. Participants examined their hearts for things they needed to surrender to God, then pinned those to corkboards.
Give Us Today This Daily Bread: Supplication. The wall of wood slats served as a place for people to write out their needs to God.
Forgive Us Our Debts: Confession. People nailed their confessed sin to the Cross and spend time in repentance.
Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Prayers of protection. We framed artwork portraying Jesus as Good Shepherd, and encouraged people to contemplate it.
For another prayer week, to begin the season of Lent, we focused on the themes fasting, surrender, and repentance:
Had a spot to apply ashes as an outward symbol of inward repentance.
One station invited participants to write out something they were fasting from for the next 40 days.
