Draw near to God

I had a very chatty 17 kids in my group this morning. I reckon all of them wanted to share their life story with me, all at the same time. It was a fairly loud start to the morning. Oh, and four of them were choosing to be not in the group. While still wanting to engage. I haven't quite figured those out yet. Maybe that's a blog post for another day. 

On the one hand, it could have become extremely frustrating. I had Things I Wanted To Do. But I had to try to create a group first, and not 19 individuals competing for the right to speak. 

So, I started with a listening exercise: everyone has to talk to their partner for one minute, without stopping. It's really hard. Impossible, actually. Your brain wants to hear the other person, and actually stops you talking. 

I think they got it... but they still had a million things to say. 

So we played Telephone, you might know it by another name. I whisper something to the person next to me, and it gets passed around the circle until it is completely unrecognisable by the end. Hilarity ensued. 

And then the noise started again. 

I worked hard, and we got to tell the story. Which was fun. And chatty.

I had two options for prayer: and one was silent. Yeah, no. The other one is an empty chair activity. See this circle on the ground? Imagine God is there: what are we going to say to him? What things can we say to God, to tell him how awesome he is? 

I started, one or two joined in, everyone else followed. It was loud. I'm sure that some of it was not even relevant. But a lot was. Definitely the majority. 

As the praying slowed to almost quiet, I reached in with my hand toward the circle, so my fingertips were just touching it, and started to pray 'Father God...'

And suddenly, there were hands all round the circle, just touching it, just like mine. 

It was the most beautiful thing. And there was quiet for a moment, while I prayed. 

While we all drew near to God.