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EQUIPMENT
You will need: a written message for the challenge, a portable music player with noise cancelling headphones, a way of showing a video with sound.
INTRODUCTION
Welcome the students and explain that this assembly will be exploring the idea of prayer. You may want to recognise that many of them will have different ideas or experiences of prayer. Some of them may have been taught to pray in a specific fashion when they were younger (hands together and eyes closed, reciting the Lord’s Prayer, or perhaps at set times of the day), while others may never have given prayer any thought at all.
Explain that the point of this assembly is to think about what prayer is actually for and to try listening for a response.
SPEAK UP!
For this activity, you should choose two confident volunteers and get them to stand at each end of the hall facing each other. Give the volunteer at the far end of the hall a pair of noise cancelling headphones attached to a music player with some music playing. Explain that the other volunteer will be communicating a message from across the room, and they should try to listen and hear what the message is. Ask them to wear the headphones and simply stand there until you signal to take them off. You will need the music to be quite loud to ensure external noise cannot be heard, but take care to ensure that it cannot damage the student’s hearing.
Next, give the message to your other volunteer at the front of the hall. It will help to have this written down in advance to avoid any confusion and delay. The message could be anything, but use something specific and concise such as ‘Meet me in town at 4pm’, or something potentially more humorous like ‘My favourite band is One Direction’.
Start the challenge and encourage the student to shout the message at the other. Hopefully the noise from the headphones will stop the message from being heard, so get them to repeat it a few times while increasing the volume of their shouting. You could even suggest actions or gestures to help them get the message across.
After a minute or so, signal to take the headphones off and get the student to come to the front. Ask them if they heard or understood any part of the message and congratulate them if they managed to guess something correctly. Next ask the student doing the shouting how they found the exercise. It is likely that it was embarrassing or frustrating. Thank your volunteers and get them to sit down.
Explain that conversation with someone can be immensely frustrating if that other person is not paying attention to you or simply not listening. A lot of people see prayer in this way; that’s it’s a one-way monologue with no response.
WHY PRAY?
If you have the facilities, consider showing the short animated video ‘Why Pray?’ from 24-7 Prayer (available on the Premier Youthwork website - www. premieryouthwork.com/resources/links). Although it focuses on the use of prayer rooms towards the end, it is a simple and engaging introduction to prayer as a way of connecting to God.
At the end, you could summarise the video by saying that the whole point of prayer, across all faiths, is to interact with a god or deity. Christians believe prayer is a direct two-way conversation with the living God and that by praying you are interacting with him.
TWO EARS
Follow on from the explanation of prayer with some questions about prayers being heard. Ask the students: What if you don’t get a response to your prayers? What if things get worse instead? What if there’s just a big cosmic silence?
Explain that many people have asked these questions, and have come to different conclusions. Display the following options on the screen, perhaps with an explanation if necessary:
- Maybe God doesn’t exist.
- Maybe he can’t hear you or is ignoring you.
- Maybe it’s possible that he’s speaking and you’re not listening to him?
The Greek philosopher Epictetus wrote some very wise words on listening around 55AD: ‘Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.’
Most of us probably spend more time talking than we do listening to others. What if we took some time to listen and think about what God might be saying to us? What might we hear?
LISTENING
Ask the whole room to stay silent for 30 seconds. Encourage them not to fidget or distract others, perhaps to place their hands in their lap and close their eyes to help concentrate. As the room gets silent, ask them to pay attention to the sounds they can hear. Perhaps there are birds outside, people in other parts of the school, traffic nearby or electrical equipment.
When the time is up, speak softly to try to keep the focus of the room. You could mention some of the things that you heard, or new sounds that were brought to your attention. Explain that when we take the time to listen, we can hear new sounds and notice things we hadn’t before. Suggest that perhaps God does answer prayers and, just like the challenge at the beginning of the assembly, is already talking to us. We just can’t hear him.
REFLECTION
While the room is subdued from the listening activity, close your assembly with a time of reflection. If it is appropriate in the school (and you have checked with the staff), you might want to pray to finish. Alternatively, you could set a challenge for the students in the coming week to spend some quiet time in prayer, listening for a response from God.
